Come give me my soul again
by cassesque
Summary: Dean can hear the implications behind that. This man, angel, has fallen in love. And he feels like he's intruding on a private moment between lovers, that it shouldn't be him here, but this other him who reciprocates Castiel's feelings.
1. prologue: what goes bump in the night

**AN Edit 19/03/11:** This fic is now an AU (I say now, I mean in the sense that it now has a fully complete working plot) as of 5x18- an alternative ending for the apocalypse basically. Enjoy!

* * *

Sam chases his demon outside and Dean's left with the one in the house. The one that's backed itself into a corner in such a way that Dean knows it's not going to be an easy fight.

He reaches down for Ruby's knife which was in his pocket, "Shit." Pocket's empty. His eyes widen as he begins patting down his other pockets, hands flying over denim, even though he's pretty sure it's not in any of them.

He looks up in time to see the demon, wearing a young Latino woman, smirking as it saunters closer.

"Oh _shit_."

"Yes," the demon agrees, flipping its long dark hair over its shoulder. And, damn, if she wasn't possessed, Dean would hit that- But she is, so maybe time to imagine how that'd go later, like alone in the shower later. "Not so strong without your pretty little knife now, are you?"

"Whatever," Dean says casually, not really interested in having a conversation with the murdering bitch, as he looks around for something he can use as a weapon. The only things in the room are a mirror and a pair of curtains so old and nasty looking he wouldn't wipe his ass on them if he ran out of paper.

"No witty comeback this time?" the demon teases, sauntering closer as she curls a strand of her hair round her finger. "You really are in deep shit."

"Not as much as you." Dean says, praying that his brother would come running through the door with Ruby's knife, "Any minute now Sammy..."

"Too late," the demon grins nastily before moving too fast and sending Dean flying into the mirror hanging above the fireplace.

* * *

His back hits the ground with a heavy thud, knocking the wind out of him. Nothing feels damaged and he can't feel any broken bits of mirror digging into his skin. Huh. Even so, he doesn't open his eyes, years of hunting experience kicking in and he knows playing dead sometimes is the best option. He can sense a figure looming over him and he realizes that he's outside, it's twenty degrees too hot and the sun is scorching his face. What the fuck just happened?

He can't wait any longer; it could be anyone standing over him, so he leans forward sharply, hands groping blindly for his attacker's throat and he opens his eyes.

"Sam?" Dean grins, relieved beyond belief that it's not some murdering psychopath or demon or some fucked up combination of the two. "Where the hell am I? What just happened?"

Sam frowns from where he's squatting over Dean, before he stands up wiping his hands on his pants, "You must have your hit your head pretty hard, dude. I just paid for the gas and found you out here flat on your back."

"Where am I?" Dean squints into the sunlight and looks around the gas station they've pulled up in. It's near deserted save for one man sitting on the corner in a chair, surrounded by stacks of crumpled, yellowing paper and looking like he's spent the majority of his life there.

Sam offers his hand. "You feeling okay?"

"I don't know," Dean says frowning as he pulls himself up with Sam's ginormous hands and brushes the sandy dirt off his pants, "last thing I know it was dark and we were in some house kicking demon ass. Next minute I'm here."

Sam leans away from his brother, putting some distance between them, and frowns before a thoughtful look comes over his face, "I think I know what's happened here; but let's go back to the room and Cas can look you over."

Dean nods, rubbing the back of his head, relieved that he's found his brother in this strange place he's in and opens the door of the Impala, her presence easing his homesickness a little, ready to go.

"What you doing Dean?" Sam asks, pulling him back and pushing him towards the other side of the car.

Dean protests, "What'd you mean? I'm _driving_."

Sam shakes his head and grabs the keys off Dean, "Seriously, dude? You just got here. For all I know, you could pass out at the wheel."

Dean hates it when Sam is right, so acquiesces in the only way he can—by threatening his little brother, "You get a scratch on her..."

"Just get in the car," Sam mutters, rolling his eyes as he sits down and turns the engine on, far too harshly in Dean's opinion, but he doesn't say anything as he sits down in the passenger seat.

The ride back to the room isn't that long, but Dean's bored and fed up and too tired to make conversation so he clicks his tongue and makes every sound imaginable with his mouth as he watches the morning sun out of his window, evidently winding Sam up but simultaneously reassuring himself that everything will ultimately be okay since Sammy is still Sammy.

"Do that one more time," Sam interrupts, "and I'll throw you out the car without stopping."

Dean opens his mouth to call him a miserable little bitch, but Sam interrupts him again, "Or slowing down."

Dean's mouth snaps shut with an audible snap, which is totally unfair, since it's his car.


	2. things i regret

**AN**: This is what happens when I'm snowed in my house and all I get to do is go to Tesco and watch women fight over bread.

* * *

"Cas!" Sam calls as he steps through the door of the motel room, "We're back."

Dean follows him in, looking for the other bed apart from the huge one in the middle, as he walks into the dimly lit room. Where _is_ the other bed?

Cas springs off the bed, his trench coat thrown across it behind him and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up. Dean's pretty sure that he's feeling anxious, "I sensed something worrying while you were gone. It appears I was incorrect."

Dean and Sam exchange glances before Sam turns his back on them both and goes over to his bag, haphazardly slung in the corner.

"Actually, Cas..." Dean begins, but doesn't finish since Castiel has crossed the room in a heartbeat and has pressed his lips to Dean's. And is kissing him. Why is Cas kissing him? Kissing _him_. Wait it's okay; it's only Cas. Dean relaxes a little before his brain catches up with him. It's _Cas_. What the fuck does he think he's doing? He breaks the kiss and pushes Cas away, putting space between them- only it's not as much as he'd like, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Castiel looks confused, and tilts his head to convey this.

"Dude," Dean says, gesticulating wildly with his hands, "you did not just kiss me. I am a guy. You are a guy. Guys do _not_ kiss!"

"You are unpleased?" Cas asks, with a head tilt as he frowns at Dean. "I do not understand. You enjoyed it this morning. "

"You weren't even there this morning!" Dean protests, "I have no idea what the hell you're talking about, but I sure as hell did not make out with you this-"

Dean's rant is cut off as Sam sprays him in the face with Holy water. Asshole.

"He is not a demon Sam," Castiel says grim-faced from across Dean.

Sam shrugs and Dean realizes he only did it to distract him from the impeding argument, "Just double-checking. You do realize that this is Dean, but not Dean right?"

Cas frowns and so does Dean.

"Maybe you should sit down?" Sam offers. Cas returns to the bed, and Dean looks around for a chair before he realizes that Sam has taken the only one, alone at a miniature-barely-standing upright table. Dean barks out a laugh since Sam currently has his knees folded up to his chest- and seriously? Who told him to grow so freaking tall? But there's nowhere else for him to sit– and no way is he getting comfy with Castiel on the bed, so he ends up propped against a radiator.

"Remember the day that Dean had that talk with us about that post-averted-apocalypse trip into the future he had?"

"Yes," Castiel says with a solemn nod at the exact time that Dean says, "No."

Dean glares at him, feeling like he's back at middle school and Cas is the smart ass in the corner with all the answers and no social skills. Oh. Wait.

"Well it's just happened." Sam explains in his best geek impression. It's good to know some things are the same wherever you find yourself. "This Dean's been pulled from the past to fill his body in our present until we fix it and he gets sent back to the past. Remember?"

Dean feels like he's just fast forwarded too far in his life. This sounds like something that he'd remember if it'd happened and he hasn't been drinking _that_ much recently so, he concludes, it just hasn't happened yet. And when did that become a perfectly acceptable answer to a problem instead of sounding crazy as shit?

"Fix me how?" Dean says, rubbing his face and getting annoyed at the lack of information they're sharing with him. "Will someone just tell me what the hell has just happened to me?"

Castiel moves across the room and stops in front of Dean, staring at him intensely with a vacant expression on his face. Looking, but not seeing.

"What the hell? Dude, _stop_ staring." Dean waves his hand in front of Cas's face in an effort to make him blink.

"You are right Sam. He is Dean," Castiel announces after his inspection and Dean rolls his eyes because _he_ could have told them that, "but he is different from the Dean of this morning."

"I'm sure you'd know all about that," Sam mutters from the corner.

Dean turns to glare at him and Sam grins back unrepentantly.

"While you two were gone I sensed something disturbing," Castiel says for the second time with a surprising amount of patience as he steps away from Dean. "Something it seems I was, in fact, correct about and Dean failed to mention in his account of his visit to the future."

"I'm sure there's a hell of a lot of stuff he missed out," Sam points out.

"Well do you want to get to it?" Dean grouches, "I want to know what the hell is going on here."

Cas flashes a fond smile at him, before he returns to looking grim, "I have contacted the Archangels and they have confirmed my fears. Dean's soul has been removed from his body. This Dean has been pulled from the past and that is why he is unable to remember anything from the last few months."

Sam nods, "So that's why he can't remember anything about the apocalypse or your relationship—he just doesn't know, it hasn't happened for him yet."

Cas looks pained but agrees.

"So the apocalypse," Dean says steering the conversation away from shit-he-doesn't-want-to-talk-about-ever-so-stop-making-eyes-like-that-Sammy and pulls a beer out of the rusty and grey tinged fridge, "what was that like?"

"We cannot tell you," Castiel says, a little smugly in Dean's opinion as Dean hands him the bottle so Cas can use his angelic powers to crack off the top, "you told us in the past that we refused to tell you anything about the apocalypse."

"Bitched about it more like." Sam interjects from the kids-size table and chair—which is just too frickin' hilarious for Dean not to laugh at whenever he glances in his direction, "Is that why you were so jumpy around Cas?"

Dean shakes his head and grabs the bottle back from Cas before he can drink it—much like he did with that liquor store, "Me? I just got here. I don't know shit."

"Say we find the thing that's taken his soul," Sam says screwing up his face as he thinks out loud, "We just pick Dean's soul up and do what with it exactly?"

"And where do I go?" Dean asks, getting the idea that this plan is very shaky at best.

"You should return from where you came," Castiel explains as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, rolling his sleeves back down now the crisis has been averted—and when did he learn to do that? Last time Dean checked, the only thing Cas could do with his clothes was billow his trench coat around him impressively and struggle undoing shoe laces, "and since we don't know where your soul is being held currently, we can do nothing."

"Nothing?" Dean repeats, getting more pissed off by the minute, "We're just going to sit around here and let some demon or something play monopoly with my soul? Or whatever the fuck it is they do for fun."

Castiel's sigh is so loud it fills the room, "Nothing will 'play' with your soul Dean."

"You bet your ass it won't be," Dean agrees, "because you're going to get us to this bastard before it can."

"Actually no Dean," Castiel interrupts, "they're invisible to the Host. Whoever's taken your soul has done a good job of concealing it and themselves from us. If I hadn't been near you and sensed such a thing; it is likely that this whole situation would have gone undetected by the angels."

"So who's looking for it?" Dean asks, standing up to pace as he gets more and more agitated, "Anyone we trust? Or are we going to let some rogue dick-face angel grab it first and give it to Lucifer himself?"

"You're going to have to find them yourselves," begins Castiel, "I have no doubts as to whether or not you and Sam will succeed. You need to calm down Dean."

Sam winces.

"Calm down?" Dean repeats, his voice raising as he gets angrier, "You're telling me to calm down when my soul has been fucking kidnapped? When did you get so fucking patronizing?"

"Anger will not help the situation, Dean." Castiel says soothingly. Dean can see his fingers twitching by his sides and wonders if he's trying to restrain himself from punching Dean or pressing two fingers to his forehead to knock him out. "Everything will be alright."

"And how do you know this?" Dean asks, rounding on him because he's a dick and he's angry and he's lost and nothing is what it should be, "Or is my soul not really missing and you angels are just using your mojo, fucking around with my head again, and trying to figure out how many shots it takes before I'm down for the count?"

"Because all your memories are intact," Castiel says coolly (not rising to the bait) as he looks up at Dean. "If this was a 'mind trick', then you would have no recollection of yourself or your brother."

Sam simplifies the situation, "Cas wouldn't be here either since the angels never turn up in those things."

Dean shakes his head and takes a sip of his beer as he glares at Sam, "Dude, why didn't you say this before?"

Sam shrugs, "Didn't want to interrupt the lovebirds."

"We are not lovebirds," Dean clarifies, pointing his finger between him and Cas and waving his near-finishing bottle of beer. "Not a couple."

Much to Dean's surprise, Castiel nods, "Dean is right, Sam. I am not in a relationship with this man."

Sam frowns from his chair-that-is-too-small and looks a bit like a kicked puppy, "I don't understand."

Dean smirks happily, sitting on the radiator again, ready to hear Castiel explain to Sam that they are not a couple and that Sam was wrong. Obviously. For someone who went to Stanford, Sam can be really dumb about a lot of things. "The man I am currently in a relationship with is the Dean Winchester of our present. This is the Dean of our past and so, I am not in a relationship with him."

"What kind of relationship is this?" Dean asks, regretting it immediately, but has convinced himself in the short space of time that he's been standing in the motel room that there has been some kind of misunderstanding and that him and Cas are just really, really, really good friends.

And that he uses radiators to warm his ass instead of Cas.

"We are engaging in mutual intercourse." Castiel says with a nonchalant air, though Dean thinks, as he chokes on his beer, that it's not really the kind of the thing that you should announce nonchalantly to a guy that's been straight his whole life.

"_Dude,_ seriously?" Sam splutters as his rickety too-small-wooden chair groans, bitchface firmly plastered on, "I did not need to hear that. What's wrong with just saying, 'It's not platonic.' And leaving it at that."

Dean frowns, secretly agreeing, "And when did this, erm, _relationship_ start?"

This time Sam and Cas exchange a glance. To be more accurate, Sam glances at Cas and Castiel tilts his head.

"We can't tell you." Sam explains.

"Okay," Dean stands up to emphasize his point, before he decides to snag another beer out the fridge, "this we-can't-tell-you-anything bullshit is going to get old. Fast."

"Dean, of our present, said not to tell you when you, of our past, asked." Castiel says. The fact that he's more willing to obey the Dean of his present rather than the Dean who's standing in front of him says something that Dean's not sure he wants to analyze.

"And that's supposed to help?" Dean decides that the beer's gone straight to his head and that maybe it'd be better (and easier) to just pretend that he'd understood what Cas has said. "Fuck me."

"Cas would," Sam mutters.

Dean ignores him and pats the pocket of his jacket down for some money to buy some proper liquor so he can get wasted with minimal effort.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to get yourself intoxicated?" Cas asks, reading his intentions.

"Hell yes," Dean mutters as he finds some bills and rolls them in his fingers to find out what's in his price range. Getting blind drunk? Fantastic idea.

"I disagree," Castiel argues, "we are not exactly 'rolling in money' as you would say."

Sam nods, "He's right. I'm not as comfortable as you with stealing people's money to make enough to live off and this past month you've been more interested in nailing Cas than hustling pool."

Dean grimaces, "Why are you telling me these things?"

There's an awkward silence and Dean glances at Cas quickly to see an expression of hurt flash across his face.

"It's only eleven thirty," Sam says. "We should really get started with some research."

"You're right," Dean shrugs, "the bars won't be open yet."

"How about you two head back to the gas station; see if you can pick any clues up about who was there," Sam suggests as he pulls out his laptop, "I'm gonna start searching on what kinds of rituals could be used and maybe start working on a counter."

Dean frowns at how transparent Sam's plans to get the two of them (back) together are, but walks out, jerking with his head for Cas to follow him.


	3. good cop, bad cop

Thanks for all the reviews! I appreciate and love every single one. If I forget to reply, it's cos I'm an idiot.

* * *

"Excuse me sir," Dean says as he approaches the old man who is busy scribbling away at something, "I hope you don't mind us asking a few questions."

"Just a minute," The man is bowed over a piece of paper, before he straightens up and blows on it, a black cloud rising off the paper and landing on the front of Cas's coat.

The angel looks down at the stain, his face puzzled, before he turns to look at Dean.

The old man seems satisfied with his creation and finally looks up at the Dean and Castiel from his chair. His face is wrinkled with age and a lifetime of sitting in the sun.

Dean clears his throat, "Yeah, I was here earlier today and I was wo-"

"I know, son." The man's attention is back on a fresh sheet of paper and his hands move over it etching out lines cleanly and efficiently.

"Look," Dean says, "we just need a few minutes of your time."

"I'm listening," the man says, glancing between them and his paper every so often, "what do you need?"

Castiel looks a mixture of fed up and stressed, "We need information about this morning. Do you recall seeing any demons?"

Dean whacks Cas on the arm sharply, "Details. He asked if you remembered any _details_ about this morning."

"That I don't," the man says, frowning now and then as he concentrates on his sketch. At the silence he looks up at Castiel contemplatively. "Sorry, son."

Dean crouches on the ground, rummaging through the stacks of paper in various stages of yellowing and crumpling. "Cas. This is it."

He hands a sheet of paper to Castiel which the angel takes and regards curiously. It's a charcoal sketch of a car and three men are standing in front of it. The level of detail embedded into it amazing. One man, standing slightly in front of the others has a heavy forehead, is slightly unshaven and has sideburns that Dean hasn't seen since the 80s. He's absorbed in the tomb he's balancing on his forearms—Dean can tell its heavy because of the way the man is standing and the angle he's holding himself at. There's a symbol on the front of it—maybe he could get Sam to look it up?

The other two men are standing slightly behind him, their postures are stiff and they have an alertness to them that's not natural—they've been trained or they're not human. It's hard to tell if they're demons or just hired men. One of them is carrying a container of a sort.

"Can we have this please?" Dean asks straightening up as he takes another look at it. The expression on the center guy's face is unclear yet still a little haunting.

The man hasn't responded, "We'll pay you," Dean says, digging around his back pocket for his wallet.

"They're not for sale," the man says quickly and quietly enough that Dean barely hears it. Dean can kind of appreciate that—not willing to sell something you deem valuable, but not now, when some demon has fucked off with his soul. "You can have this though." He blows heavily on the piece of paper he was working on and another cloud of dust rises off and settles on Castiel's coat.

Castiel's expression is unreadable.

It's a sketch of him and Castiel. The two of them are standing in front of the Impala, Dean is briefing Cas on how to approach this situation but they just look _intimate_. It might be the body language or the way that Castiel is looking into Dean's eyes or the way Dean's hand is lingering on Cas's arm.

Dean gulps, _does not_ look at Cas and refocuses his attention on the first sketch.

"Is there anything we can do to persuade you otherwise?" Dean asks, making a mental note of the license plate on the car.

"No," the man says resolutely, watching their expressions.

Castiel reaches out with two fingers before Dean can stop him and presses them to the man's forehead. The man slumps backward in his chair.

"Cas!" Dean hisses in his best authorative tone, "What do you think you're doing? We had the license plate!"

"The man was being unreasonable," Cas shrugs and takes the drawing, "I got the job done, didn't I?"

* * *

Hours later when they arrive back at the motel, its night because after they took a couple hours to get lunch, Dean decides to fill out a couple more credit card applications, sort out some supplies and make up for where his future self has already started slacking. When was his gun last cleaned?

Sam doesn't seem worried though, when they get back to the motel, he's got a shit eating grin plastered across his face.

"So I was looking into the gas station," Sam explains as he lays out a map on the table which wobbles precariously. "And I realized that to get to it you have to use the highway."

"As you do to get to most places," Dean interrupts, "spit it out already sasquatch."

Sam frowns, but continues, "Look, you either have to use this highway," he traces a colored line on the map and the table sways at the slight movement, "or this highway and they both have toll booths. I mean, sure, there are other minor intersections off both, but I doubt whoever's done this would be so local. Either way it narrows down the search."

"And the toll booth helps how?"

"Well, dumbass," Sam says with a smile, "they're privately owned; so more than likely to have CCTV. Insurance and all that. We can go through it and match it to your picture."

Dean nods appreciatively, "Nice work, Sammy."

"So what now?" Castiel says.

Sam goes over to the faucet to get a glass of water, "Well we can do this two ways; I can work out where the CCTV feeds to and then we can break in or we can contact them under the pretense of being the FBI and ask them to send us the tapes. Either way there's nothing more we can do tonight."

"Looks like I can hit the bars and get me some action then," Dean says stretching and pulling out his leather (pulling) jacket.

"You will not." Cas says moving too fast for Dean to see and suddenly, their faces are inches away.

"I will do what I want." Dean says resolutely, refusing to back down, but does take a step back away from Castiel and towards the door, "Free will's a bitch, right?"

"That's not your body." Castiel says unwaveringly, "Show some respect."

"Look, it's late." Sam interjects before the inevitable 'Suck my dick' comes out of Dean's mouth and Castiel decides to take it literally, "We're all tired, things are going to get nasty—let's all just go to bed."

"If you have no need for me," Castiel looks hurt, and for a couple of seconds Dean feels bad for being a little callous, "I'll be in our- my room. I can track the progress that the Archangels are making."

Sam and Dean watch him disappear, leaving the bed covers rustling as he mojos out.

"So, where am I sleeping then?" Dean asks yawning, as he looks around the one-bedded room pointedly.

Sam stands up from the miniature table and digs around in his pocket for a moment before throwing a motel key at his brother.

Dean looks at it suspiciously, "Am I seriously bunking with Cas?"

Sam nods, "Yes; and speaking of Cas, the way you just-"

"We are not having this conversation," Dean interrupts holding his head, "I am not talking to you about this… this, _thing_ I have with Cas."

"Oh right," Sam says sarcastically, "because you handled it so well already."

"I'm not gay."

"So? Cas isn't a guy." Sam is quiet for a moment, "I've already watched you have one mini gay crisis – I'll think I'll pass on watching you have another."

Dean can't think of anything to say so he leaves the room, switching the spare key for Castiel's room with the one for Sam's. No way in hell is he going to share a bed with Cas.

* * *

Maybe he should have stayed out hustling pool for a little longer, Dean thinks to himself as he pushes Sam off him again for the third time that night. The guy needs to learn boundaries; he needs to learn to stay on his own side of the bed. What happened to putting a chair—one that doesn't try and fall apart when you sit on it— in a room? Sure, it's a cheap motel but there's cheap and then there's we'll-throw-in-cockroaches-for-you-at-no-extra-charge.

Dean sighs, but then he's winded when Sam rolls himself onto Dean again. What the hell have they been feeding him, because _fucking hell_; he's got to weigh the same as a truck. Not even that, a monster truck.

It's either the bed or the floor, but the floor is sticky with fuck knows what and not to mention cold. Dean doesn't have a problem with getting dirty, but there are some things that just don't classify as dirt, nor should be caked onto the floor of a motel room. There's mud and demon bits and then there's just nasty things that he's not sure he really wants to identify. Nothing is worth this, Dean thinks as he slips on his boots, takes several long swigs of liquid courage from the bottle in his bag and grabs the key for Castiel's room.

Two guys sharing a bed. There's nothing gay about that. Especially if they're wearing clothes and Dean intends to be fully dressed. Even if Cas isn't.

Finding Cas' room isn't the hardest bit; he stands outside with his hand held over the knocker deliberating whether to bang on the door until Castiel opens it or just wander in, using the key. Wandering in seemed like a good idea, but what if Cas was busy- what if he was sleeping? Did angels even sleep?

"We do not." Castiel says opening the door and scaring the shit out of Dean.

"Well, that's, erm, good to know," Dean mutters, looking down at the floor, as he tries to act smooth and not, you know, like Cas made him jump five foot in the air. Damn nerves.

Cas doesn't say anything, just stares at Dean.

The two of them are standing in Cas' doorway staring at each other. The whisky's gone to his head.

"So can I come in then?" asks Dean after he realizes Cas won't invite him and an awkward silence has settled. "I do remember you, you know Cas. We're not two strangers standing in the door of a motel talking."

Cas moves out of the doorway and walks towards the bed where he starts unbuttoning his shirt.

"Whoa!" Dean says alarm bells ringing in his head as he catches sight of Castiel undressing, "Why are you taking clothes off?"

Castiel frowns, "I am merely getting ready for bed." And when did he learn to do that?

Yeah, there's getting ready for bed and then there's _getting ready for bed._ But Dean doesn't say anything pushing the thoughts that trail into the gutter, or in this case Cas' pants, out of his head.

"Yeah about that," Dean's voice is quiet, "would it be okay if I slept in here tonight?"

Cas looks surprised so Dean babbles quickly, thinking that he's going to be kicked out.

"It's just that Sammy doesn't really understand the rules of sharing a bed with someone and when he rolls on top of you it's kinda hard to breathe, let alone sleep. If you know what I mean."

Cas smiles at him fondly, a little like the way he did earlier and Dean realizes that this must be hard for him. To be with someone who looks like your lover, essentially is your lover, but rejects you repeatedly.

"I'm sorry," Dean says belatedly, rubbing a hand over his face, "this was a mistake. I should go."

"It's okay Dean," Castiel clears his throat and smiles, "you can stay – it's not a problem. Just remain on your side of the bed."

Dean nods gratefully and strips out of his jacket and boots before he climbs into the bed. Castiel joins him a moment later, turning the lamp off and Dean freaks out a little since he's noticed that Cas is only in his underwear.

"Goodnight Dean," Cas murmurs before he rolls onto his side away from Dean, and facing the door.

It takes Dean a while to respond since he's caught up in his thoughts.

"Why are we dating Cas?" Dean asks long after Castiel had given up on a response, "I mean – what do you see in me?"

Cas rolls over to face Dean. "I am unsure as to whether or not I should tell you this now." He says after a minute of silence, "I do not think you are ready to hear what I have to say."

Dean huffs, "Do you think I would have asked you the damn question if I wasn't ready to hear the damn answer?"

"Yes," Castiel chuckles low in his throat; Dean's eyes widen and heat pools low in his stomach—his body's memory response to an auditory stimuli; he'd never heard a sound like that come from the angel before. "Yes, you would ask me. Shall I assume you will not let me rest until you have your answer?"

"Damn straight," Dean tucks his arms under his head and rolls on his back to look at the ceiling. "I'm waiting."

"Well there are a lot of things that I cannot tell you," Cas explains, "But let me make it clear that angels do not experience things the way humans do. We are always rational and well, compared to this world, things up there are so much easier."

"Black and white," Dean interjects, showing that he understands.

"Yes," Castiel frowns as the expression takes a moment to register in his mind before he continues, "but down here, we're subject to temptation. Before, you could have asked me what love was and I could have given you ten different definitions. But none of them would have really defined it.

"It is much easier for me to look back and understand why Jacob worked fourteen years to marry Rachel when he could have married Leah in seven, why Ahasuerus chose Esther, why Samspon revealed his secret to Delilah. I can understand why they acted the way they did. I'm experiencing things which I had thought I understood, but I really didn't. I do love my Father, but it's very different from the love that you inspire in me. "

He loves Dean? He loves Dean. He _loves_ Dean. Everything about him says that he loves Dean: the way his eyes have light up, the way he's become animated. Everything.

He pauses, not aware of the impact he's just had with that simple statement, and rolls onto his stomach and uses his elbows to prop himself up so he can see Dean better or, so Dean can see him better, "I cannot differentiate if it is overwhelming because I am new to this. Or…."

"Or what?" Dean prompts unconsciously shifting closer to Cas, the streetlamp outside is pouring through a crack in the curtains. It's highlighting the angel's face and it's making Dean see Cas differently.

"You have to understand. I am an angel. I've been around since the beginning of Creation and I have seen billions of people. But never anyone like you. _This_ has never happened before."

Dean can hear the implications behind that. This man, angel, has fallen in love. And he feels like he's intruding on a private moment between lovers, that it shouldn't be him here, but this other him who reciprocates Castiel's feelings.

"Thank you for telling me Cas," he says after the silence that has stretched between them has grown old and he vows to do everything he can to get his Dean back to him, because it is the least he deserves.

* * *

Dean wakes up with his arms and legs tangled with someone else's. Generally, Dean considers it a good start to the day if he wakes up like this since it means last minute/morning sex before he rushes off to meet Sam to do what they have to do.

Today, though, he's not quite sure how he feels about waking up like this. It feels great to wake up with someone, he couldn't deny that. But he's not quite sure how he feels about the fact that it's Cas. Especially as he has a rather large morning wood.

"Good morning Dean," Castiel murmurs.

Dean looks up to see Castiel's face millimeters away from his. He gulps. "Mornin' Cas."

"Did you sleep well?" Cas's hand is moving under the sheets, under Dean's shirt. Onto Dean's chest, traces his abs, circles his bellybutton, dips lower under his boxers. Down, down, down and-

Dean throws himself off the bed in an effort to get away from Castiel's hand. There's a knock on the door and Dean stays exactly where he is, hiding behind the bed, hating his treacherous dick which was enjoying Cas's ministrations, since he doesn't want Sam to know he's there.

Castiel's lips are pressed into a tight line as he stands up and goes to open the door.

"Good morning Sam."

"Morning." Sam replies, sounding worried, "Is Dean here? I just woke up and he's gone."

Cas opens the door wider to reveal the empty bed. "You do not have to worry Sam – he is safe."

"You know where he is?"

Dean's nervous, since he has no clue as to what Castiel will say.

"Where do you think he is?" Cas shrugs.

Sam sighs with relief, assuming that Castiel is being rhetorical, "He's probably gone to sleep in his baby. You know, if he wasn't so into you so much I'd be worried about how much he fixates on that car."

Dean concentrates on getting rid of his morning wood by thinking about how much he's going to hurt Sam when this is all over.

"Anyway," Sam says, and pats Castiel awkwardly on the shoulder, "I'll catch you later-I'm going to go look for Dean."

Castiel nods, "Yes. I will see you later today also Sam."

Dean peeks over the top of the bed as he laces up his boots and watches Cas shut the door.

"I apologize for my actions earlier Dean," Castiel says, his head bowed with what Dean can only assume is regret.

Dean interrupts from the corner where he's putting on his jacket, "Seriously, dude, don't worry about – it was nothing."

"I am still sorry." Castiel mutters, "I forgot who you were. It was not proper of me."

And sleeping with your charge is? Not that Dean's one to talk since he's never been one to play by the rules.

"S'alright." Dean changes the subject in order to make Castiel feel better. "Anyway, dude, you were awesome back there – lying but not, without the, you know, lying bit."

Castiel smiles and it's suddenly Dean's turn to pat him on the shoulder awkwardly.

"I better catch up with Sam," Dean says in lieu of goodbye and then he sticks his head out the door, peers both ways to make sure his brother isn't lurking around outside, and then heads after him.


	4. wherever this may find you

**AN:** Blanket references to season 6 episode 12. I haven't seen season 6 myself yet—I just know what happens in that one episode, and it was fun to add, so.

* * *

They're in a diner for breakfast. "We must keep to ourselves and try not to attract any attention," Castiel had said. Sam had given him a pointed look at the 'not attracting any attention part' and almost as if to prove his point, when they walked in nearly every female had turned to stare. Three hot guys? One with a larger than life presence and piercing blue eyes, the other with short honey brown hair, green eyes and kinda cute, the other a lanky six foot something. Dean shudders; he doesn't really want to think about what chicks find hot about his brother.

Sam sends Dean and Cas over to a booth while he goes to order and Dean gives his brother a withering glare at how transparent his plan to get the two of them together is.

Dean settles into the booth and Cas slides in opposite, feet brushing against his for a moment before they're gone. Things are awkward.

"So…?" Dean says in an effort to break the uncomfortable silence, it's nothing like the one last night.

Cas looks at him instead of out the window, an improvement in Dean's opinion, "Is there something on your mind Dean?"

Dean looks at him, then fiddles with the napkin. "You know exactly what I'm thinking most of the time. Why are you even asking me this?"

"Actually," Castiel corrects softly, "I don't. I know your exact location if you're within a certain distance of me and I can vaguely sense your intentions, but I just guess everything else."

Dean frowns because then that means that this _relationship_ he has with Cas is real. It means that Cas knows him so well; he practically knows what he's thinking. It's not just sex and they really are into each other like Sam said.

Shit.

"What's it like?" Dean asks. "Being an angel," he clarifies after seeing Castiel's blank expression, "it's gotta be fun? Well, not fun, but there's go to be some perks, you know, like the mojo and the living forever—until someone kills you that is, but it's gotta be one of those rewarding careers like a firefighter, or a doctor, or a kindergarten teacher or…"

He looks up to see Castiel's expression has changed to one of slight amusement, "You know what? I'm just gonna stop talking right now."

Cas still doesn't say anything. His poker face is too good.

"You're enjoying this," Dean says accusingly.

Castiel smirks, "Maybe."

"So," Dean prompts as he flaps his hand to encourage Cas to share, genuinely curious, "you gonna explain or what?"

Castiel looks pensive for a moment, "It's not easy to articulate." Dean nods and he continues, using his hands to gesture, "It's so… vast and dynamic, for lack of better words."

Dean unconsciously leans in towards Cas. "And when we enter a vessel, we have to compress our entire essence into it. It's not painful, but it's incredibly uncomfortable at first. And our senses are so raw compared to yours. This world is intoxicating, overwhelming. Sometimes it can be a bit much."

"So why do you do it then?" Dean asks, tracing his fingers over the tines of his fork to avoid looking Cas in the eyes, "Not that I'm not glad you're here, but if it's so uncomfortable…"

"Don't you ever do things you don't want to do?" Castiel replies.

Dean wants to ask if his mother never told him it was rude to answer a question with a question, but Dean can't exactly talk since he eats yogurt with his fingers and spends inappropriately long on the Magic Fingers. He nods.

Castiel's hand is sneaky and reaches across the table to still Dean's hand, "You and I are more alike than you think then."

Sam joins them then, sliding into the booth next to his brother, and Dean snatches his hand away from Castiel's grasp. The poor guy looks kinda down.

"So Dean," Sam says and the tone alone makes Dean want to punch him for whatever he's about to say next, "how'd you sleep last night?"

Dean panics but then remembers that Sam thinks he slept in the Impala. "How do you think?"

Sam chuckles softly, "Yeah—you're kinda too old to sleep in the car now. Stiff neck or what?"

Dean nods and tilts his head from side to side like his neck actually hurts. "Tell me about it dude, I feel like crap."

"It's just weird that you weren't there this morning." Sam is a persistent little shit. No wonder he wanted to be lawyer.

"Yeah, um, I woke up early," Dean lies, "the light and the birds and your obnoxious voice."

Sam shrugs, "It's just not like you to be an early riser, you know."

"Look, whatever, dude," Dean says getting slightly wound up, "If you didn't weight four hundred pounds and snore as loud as a fricking jackhammer; I wouldn't wake up stiff."

Sam raises an eyebrow.

"With, an erm, stiff neck, I mean." Dean mutters, rubbing his neck for effect. In another life, he would have been a freaking amazing actor, "Anyway, Cas you never finished telling about being an angel."

Castiel looks slightly less miserable as he finishes his explanation and it surprises Dean that a simple rejection has such an effect on Castiel's mood—the angel is actually hopelessly in love with his other self. His present self. He makes a mental note to just avoid awkward hand holding if possible.

"I don't like this," Dean moans after all conversation has run out, "this sitting around doing fuck all when my soul's sitting out there in some bastard's living room."

"I doubt the person who has taken it has it in their living room," Castiel says ever literal, "The soul would have to be enclosed in either a container or by sigils, marks or incantations."

"And when it's released it would do what exactly?" Sam asks. "We never covered this yesterday."

"Please don't say it'll fly away into the wind and never be seen again." Dean mutters.

Castiel gives Dean an odd look, "It'd return to where it rightfully belongs. In your body."

"And there's no chance that there'd be two of me in here?"

Sam looks horrified, "Are you kidding? Two of you? That'd be a nightmare, dude. And can you imagine how bitchy you'd be? And which of you'd be in charge? The past one or the present one? 'Cos if it was the you from now you'd be all over Cas like-"

"Don't make me hurt you," Dean says warningly, about to punch his brother, but then the waitress brings their meals over and he figures that there are more important things to do. Especially when sausages are involved.

"The chance that such an event would happen is infinitesimally minute." Castiel says as he too begins to eat.

"Wait a minute," Dean says spearing a sausage and brandishing it at Castiel, "there _is_ a chance that that could happen?"

Castiel, who has just eaten a mouthful of potato, nods.

"So you want to go ahead with it all the same and just think of what might happen to me as collateral damage?"

"No," Castiel says around the potato, much to Sam's disgust and Dean's amusement, "the probability of such an event happening is close to zero." He swallows, "You have to understand, Dean, that we _cannot_ have your soul missing. It's too dangerous; it'd be too easy to..."

Sam interrupts smoothly over Castiel, "So have you done this kind of thing before?"

Dean's hunting honed instincts flicker. There's something they're not telling him.

"Yes and no," Castiel says, putting his fork down as he realizes that he won't be getting a chance to eat for a while, "people's souls have been removed from their body before; but it is such a rare event that there is not really much protocol."

Sam is intrigued, "You guys have protocol?"

"How else would we function efficiently?" Castiel pushes his food around on his plate looking forlorn at the lack of eating happening on his side of the booth, "There are many angles and we all have different duties."

Sam perks up, presumably to ask all about them, and Dean interrupts waving his hand around, "Down geek-boy; let the angel eat."

"What did you mean when you said yes and no when Sam asked you if this had happened before?" Dean asks, after Castiel has eaten more of his breakfast.

"Normally, when someone's soul is removed from their body, they become comatose. They can be controlled."

"I thought my soul, was just like, some floaty thing above my head."

"You are wrong," Castiel says, blunt as ever but not unkind, "it's not your soul that has been taken but you, your essence, your consciousness, your being. There isn't really a word for it in English."

"And my body pulled my soul from the past to compensate for my current missing soul?"

Castiel nods grimly, "That has never happened before. It is to some degree why this whole event has the Archangels on a high alert. It's just a sign that Dean's soul needs to be here and in his body at all costs."

Sam prompts, "The other part which has them so worried?"

"They can't locate his soul." Cas explains, "Normally they can be found and returned within a couple of hours but it has been about a day since this Dean has been here."

"And that means whoever's pulling the strings behind this shit is into some really powerful stuff." Dean says, eyes wide.

Castiel smiles at him. "And if we eliminate the possibility that present you was exaggerating when he complained about how long he was stuck in the future…"

Sam's eyes widen. "Fuck."

"What?" Dean says, "You two are pulling that bullshit again, you know?"

"We are so screwed," Sam says, pulling a face that means _this shit is nasty, nasty!_ in an old southern accent.

Castiel seems resigned to the fact that he's spending the rest of his foreseeable career as an angel pulling these two out of shit and doesn't even blink, "Which is why we should go and see the Prophet."

Dean and Sam share a look. Going to see Chuck means going to see Becky. Dean's not sure he can handle this shit so early in the morning. Or if it's Becky-shaped—ever.

"I don't think it'd be a good idea for us to go and see Becky," Sam says carefully. Dean remembers how fond she is of him; he can't blame the kid.

"We're not going to see Becky," Castiel looks at Sam like he's clearly an idiot, "we're going to see Ellie."

"Ellie?" Dean repeats, "Is she like the hotter, younger version of Chuck?"

Sam elbows him and Cas's jaw tightens—almost imperceptibly, but Dean notices. At the back of his mind he wonders if he's a jerk on purpose; to try and illicit _some_ kind of response from Castiel, like the boy in kindergarten who pulls on the little girl's hair.

"Logistically speaking, she is the best option we have," Cas continues like he hadn't even been interrupted, "and then we'll have to keep moving; those demons will be after you Dean and we can't-"

"Heard it all before," Dean says, desperately wishing Castiel would so much as look at him, "no drink, no sex, no demons."

Castiel raises an eyebrow, "I never said no sex." He scrapes the last bit of potato off his plate and slides out the booth, "I have some errands to attend to; I will meet you by the car in 25 minutes."

Dean's tempted to turn round to watch him walk out, but Sam would call him a girl and then he'd have to embarrass Sam by handing his ass to him in a fight. Dean figures, he's a better, kinder and brother than Sam could ever be, so refuses to let himself be an easy mark.

"Did he just proposition you?" Sam says, eyes wide, trying to look innocent and surprised instead of pleased like he's done Cupid a favor for the day.

Dean shakes his head, because it really is way too early for this shit.


	5. interlude: you might as well live

**AN:** Blanket, blanket spoilers for Fringe Season 3 (if you don't watch Fringe, why not?) Also, just to clarify this is just me poking a little fun at Twilight, no offence is intended (hopefully none has been taken). Personally, I loved the books when I first read them years ago, I just feel the films haven't done them any justice. But the eye candy (read: Taylor Lautner) is delish. That is all.

**AN 2:** I don't really like writing Original Characters, and this was definitely a challenge for me (I had this great scene planned out with Dean and Ellie and banter (think Rachel from 500 Days Of Summer), but it wouldn't come out right so I just scrapped it and re-wrote the whole thing - that's partly why it took so long for me to update, lol.) Also, unbeta'd so if there are any Americanisms that should be in here, but aren't let me know please!

Drop me a line to let me know what you think please! -C

* * *

Dean hops in the car, turns the key and hits the gas without saying a word.

He pretends not to notice the worried looks flicking between Sam and Cas under the pretense of sharing the chocolate chip cookies that Ellie's mom had baked them.

Half an hour later, Dean figures Sam must have had enough of Led Zeppelin because he turns the music off.

Dean starts, ("Did you just touch my radio?") but Sam cuts him off and pulls his Come On Dean, You Are A Grown Up And This Is Serious Business bitchface.

"So….?"

Dean shakes his head and refuses to look anywhere but at the road, "I don't want to talk about it."

"Come on," Sam sighs, "it can't have been that bad."

Dean finally turns to look at his brother, "She made me watch Twilight."

Sam's eyebrows shoot up and he looks constipated so Dean's fairly sure that he's trying his hardest not to laugh.

Cas's question from the backseat startles them both; "Surely the acting is not that bad?"

Sam laughs, "Did Dean experience a feeling?"

Dean knows this is going to be one of those Moments (like when Sam was a kid and going through one of those phases where his hair covered half his face and some old lady had called him 'a pretty little thing'. Sam still wears she was half blind, but whatever, he got a haircut the next weekend), that will haunt him forever.

"Shut up," he says, resisting the urge to smack his brother.

"Did you get all emotional," Sam continues, "and-"

"She basically outlined the parallels between the scenarios of Twilight and our situation," Dean says then looks at his brother sharply, daring him to say a word.

"My mouth is firmly closed," Sam says grinning insanely, "not funny at all—I get it."

"So, apparently, I'm Bella and Cas is Edward."

Sam laughs.

Dean looks at him, "I don't know why you're laughing, dude, she said you were Jacob."

"What else did she say?" Sam says, because it's suddenly not funny when the shoe's on the other foot. Bitch.

"Nothing," Dean shrugs, "it wasn't a big deal; we just chatted a bit." And so, yeah, maybe he was the one that came out of there acting like the world had ended, but that's not the point.

"She didn't ask you why you were there?" Castiel asks. "Or if you had anything to ask her?"

"Yeah," Dean says, "she did, but there's nothing I want to know; I mean it's obvious we already get my soul back, I don't want to know when I die."

Sam shakes his head with a look on his face like he just saw Dean kick a small animal, "Can you pull over here—I wanna pick up some lunch."

Sam climbs out and Dean turns round to face Cas, "Come on, let's sit outside while we wait—it's a nice day out."

He leans against the trunk and pats the space next to him, inviting Cas to sit there. Dean doesn't think Cas realizes what an honor it is, since if it was anyone other than them Sam or Bobby who dared put their ass on his car—they'd be in trouble.

Dean watches Sam lope off to buy a salad and then turns to the angel, "Do you think that was really worthwhile?"

Cas turns his head slowly to scrutinize him, "You do not think talking to the Prophet has helped."

Dean shrugs and taps his fingers irregularly on the hood of his car, "She's only a kid still."

"She told you what you needed to hear," Cas says resolutely, "She's not Chuck, her task is not to focus on your past. She sees everything."

"Kinda a lot for a kid to handle, don't you think?"

"What I think is irrelevant," this time Cas shrugs, and his attention is on his fingers splayed out on the hood, like he has to watch them to make sure they don't wander over to Dean, "She would not have been given the gift if she was not strong enough."

Dean thinks back to Chuck's drinking and the dark circles under Ellie's eyes and privately disagrees.

"So what did she tell you that you didn't tell Sam?" Cas asks, finally looking at him.

Dean squints at him, "What makes you think I didn't tell him everything?"

"Because I know you."

And fair enough; he's right and Dean can't argue with that, "Let's see—the whole 'Forbidden Love' aspect makes it 'soo more romantic' and she hopes you don't wait three more books to put out."

"I will not," Cas promises in a grave tone, like Dean's just asked him not to scratch his car, but his eyes are glinting a wicked blue and the disparity between the two is just too much.

Dean cannot handle this shit anymore and, just, what do you even say to that?

So he rambles, because it's easier than thinking about him and Cas and the complete lack of personal space that they exhibit, like that scene where Ellie (who had fast forwarded through most of the film) hit play just in time for Dean to hear Edward say, 'I don't have the strength to stay away from you any more' and Bella to reply, 'Well don't' and even though they're sitting down, they still manage to be all up in each other's faces. Like him and Cas now, leaning on the hood of his car, and there's miles of shiny metal between them but then Cas's hand is in the middle of it, a stark contrast to the black (like an oasis in a desert or a lone star in the night sky), all splayed out—wide and welcoming and ready for Dean to just grasp.

"So I said to her, 'Wait, what do you know about relationships?' You know this kid is only about fourteen right? And then she said, 'More than you think, I had to dump my boyfriend last week, he was too clingy.'

"Then she looked at me like I was, I don't know, her _sorority sister_ or something and said, 'I don't _do_ clingy.' What am I supposed to say to that Cas?"

"Dean whatever she told you, she told you for a good reason." Cas says and suddenly, Castiel's hand has snuck across the bonnet to shyly grasp Dean's and squeeze it reassuringly. It's more comforting than he'd like to admit.

Dean shakes it off after a couple of seconds under the pretense of scratching the back of his neck.

"What's taking Gigantor so long?" Dean gripes, "He only went to buy a salad, not terrorize a small village."

They turn around to face the store just in time to see Sam go crashing through the glass door and land on the small pieces scattered about on the 'Welcome' mat. Three bulky men in rumpled suits, all with black eyes, step through the Sam shaped hole and walk towards his sprawled out body, ready to finish kicking the shit out of him.

Cas and Dean turn to look at each other and nod, "Demons."

Dean races round to the back of the Impala to grab a gun and Cas walks up to the men like he only wants to ask them directions to the nearest Target instead of, you know, ganking them.

Dean would think it was pretty hot, but he's busy loading his shotgun and taking more rounds and the demon killing knife out the trunk.

He runs to check on his brother, keeping his shotgun up and ready so he's ready to back up Cas if it comes to it, "Sammy? Can you hear me?"

Sam's eyes are unfocused and he's gritting his teeth which means that something is dislocated, fractured or broken.

By the time Cas is done killing the demons, five more appear. Today is not a good day.

"Remind me why we do this again," San says as he snatches the knife off Dean and lopes off to find himself some demon to kill. Impressively, he manages two in the time it takes Dean to shoot the other three and pin one down who was hiding behind a dumpster.

"Who are you working for?" Dean asks, pushing the demon to the floor and training the muzzle of his shotgun on him.

The demon groans and rolls over.

"Are you sure we should be doing this now?" Sam asks looking around the parking lot to the store, which isn't exactly empty. "Maybe we should take this elsewhere."

"I don't really want that thing in my car."

Castiel comes over to them and agrees with Sam, the treacherous bastard, "Sam is right. This is not the place to interrogate him."

Dean looks at Sam who shrugs, "Let's tie him up."

Dean rolls his eyes and gestures with his shotgun, "Up." The demon scrambles to stand at the side of the Impala while Sam digs some rope out the trunk.

"See Cas?" Dean says, keeping the shotgun pointed at the demon, "This is why Prophets always get the wrong idea about us—tying up men and taking them back to our room.

Cas nods, pushing the demon into the passenger seat and then following behind. "I see."

* * *

"Don't hurt me," the demon says fearfully, then waits a beat, "or at least—no permanent damage. You guys are the good ones aren't you?"

Dean just looks at the demon incredulously, "I'm sorry, what?"

The demon shrugs as well as he can with his hands tied behind his back. Dean makes a mental note to tighten the ropes. "I'm supporting a wife and three kids."

"Ha freakin' ha," Dean says, "we caught a demon with a conscience."

Sam looks up from his laptop where he's hacking into the national car registration database. Dean managed to pop his shoulder back into its socket, but his arm is resting in a sling, "There was no we, Dean, this one—that was all you."

"Shut up," Dean snaps, aware that the demon can hear all of this and it's quite under-mining, "no-one asked you anything."

Sam hums, not listening, and continues tapping away at the keys in a way which is impressive considering he can only use one hand. Castiel is more interested in learning to be a computer hacker than torturing demons so is hovering over Sam's shoulder. Dean likes to think he's more annoyed because Cas _should_ be demon-torturing and not because he's picked to spend quality time with Sam.

"You're a demon, you lie, and you make deals." Dean says, "You don't get married and live in the suburbs."

"I'm trying to turn my life around." The demon says, shaking his head and making his brown curls bounce a little.

Dean rolls his eyes because this isn't a Lifetime Movie, "Why the fuck are you here?"

The demon looks Dean in the eyes, "My kids wanna go to Disneyland; I need the extra money."

"You couldn't make this stuff up," Sam says muffling his laughter behind his laptop.

Dean lifts the gun up like he's going to shoot it but pumps it instead, ejecting the empty shell onto the floor because that's threatening and he's supposed to be torturing the demon, "Why are you here?"

"I told you," the demon protests, "my kids…"

"You think I believe that cockamamie bullshit?" Dean asks, standing over the demon, because it's intimidating. "Tell me the truth."

"That is the truth! I'll tell you who I work for." The demon looks up hopefully, "For a price."

Dean sighs and kicks the demon's knee with the whole force of his boot behind it. There's a loud crack as the steel capping at the end connects with the top of the man's kneecap—there's a hairline fracture there at least.

The demon is panting hard and grimacing with pain, "Or you know, for free."

Dean nods, and doesn't say anything. The only sounds in the motel room are the demon's shuddering breaths and Sam's fingers clacking on the keyboard.

"His name is Adrian," the demon says, "that's all he told me and that's all I know. He paid me and half a dozen other demons 700 dollars each to collect on you."

Dean nods as he walks round the demon to fish his wallet out the back pocket of his jeans (ignoring the fact that he is essentially feeling up another guy's ass and that of all the possible times, this is when Cas turns to stare). True to the demon's word there's a picture of him next to a smiling blond woman and two dark haired children. He pulls out the man's driving license and reads the address on the back.

"You can go," Dean says, because while he is a Hunter he's not a stone cold bastard and if the demon wants to take kids to Disneyland, who is he to stop him? He cuts the ropes around the demon's wrists with the knife he has strapped to his leg and plucks 90 bucks out the wallet, daring the demon to say a word. "Don't come back. Don't contact Adrian, disappear and go back home to your family. Come after me or anyone else in the room?"

The demon nods slowly, carefully, because he understands how much it means that he's been allowed to leave, "And I won't come after you. I'll come after your family.

"Gregory Bar, Apartment 3, 3248 Hastings Avenue, Brooklyn, NY," Dean recites, "Got it?"

Gregory nods, eyes wide, more scared of Dean now than when he was threatening him with the shotgun.

"Wait," Sam says, "how do you know there isn't a person in him still?"

Dean doesn't know how to explain how he knew, and Sam isn't going to come of his case until he has proof so he turns to the demon, "He's dead isn't he?"

Gregory nods, "About ten years now." He tries to get up, but the fracture is more painful than he'd anticipated and he sinks back to the chair.

"Here," Dean unrolls the money he stole from the demon, and hands him a twenty back of his own money, "take a taxi."

"I've got a hit," Sam says turning the laptop round to show Dean the screen, "The license plate is registered to one Adrian Nemod. There's an address too, but I'll think it'll be about as useful as the name."

Dean blinks, "What?"

"Nemod," Sam repeats slowly, "anagram of those dark eyed things we hunt, you know, demons."

Dean chuckles, "Hiding in plain sight now?"

"Apparently so," Sam sighs, "Cas and I'll get some books out the trunk so you can start research on that symbol—I need to set up a reverse image search and then see where to go from there."

Dean settles down for a long afternoon surrounded by books while Sam's hunched over his laptop and Cas is in the corner updating the archangels to their current situation. He looks like he's meditating, but Dean figures the guy's taking a nap because he's been 'updating' the archangels for a good two and a half hours now. Dean's been 'reading' the same page for a good 45 minutes now, but he likes to think, he's been covert in his ogling.

Suddenly a screwed up ball of paper flies past his ear and Dean starts when he realizes Sam's been calling him, "What?"

"You're staring."

Dean shoots him the stink eye as in _he's right here in the room, asshole what are you doing?_, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Sam looks between his brother and his angel, "Relax. He can't hear us—it's like he's not even here; his consciousness is on a different plane, so it's fine."

"You throw like a girl," Dean says, because he a) he's embarrassed that he got caught ogling and b) there's nothing else he could say to his brother after the amount of bickering they did in the car.

About ten minutes later, Cas blinks and stands up slowly, "It is late; I am going to rent a room now."

Dean pretends to look up from his book, when he'd been watching Cas all along, "You don't need one."

Sam shoots a warning glance his way.

Cas stops halfway between shrugging his coat on and moving towards the door.

"Old habits," he sits down a chair, looking uncomfortable and unsure what to do with himself.

Sam takes pity on him, and walks over to him, taking some bills out his wallet, "Seriously dude, go and get one. Dean's probably gonna break out the Magic Fingers and that's not something you want to see."

Cas takes the money and smiles at Sam for a moment before walking out the room.

Dean likes to pretend that he's not jealous at the friendship they've got going on. "What'd you do that for?" he says, when the door slams shut.

Sam turns to him, "Because you were being a douche, okay?"

"We're have no money," Dean replies because it's easier to say that than to admit he was being a dick.

"He needs it Dean," Sam says with as much passion as when he complains about the lack of funding for the arts. "His boyfriend's sitting right in front of him being a dick and just refusing to acknowledge his relationship. This isn't easy on either of you."

"I know," Dean says sinking onto one of the beds. "I just…"

Suddenly, there's an obnoxious pop and Gabriel appears snapping his fingers, "Boys!"

Dean notices that Sam edges away from Gabriel and towards the door, "Back to being an Archangel now?" Dean asks.

"I never stopped," Gabriel grins and turns to Sam, "Hello Gorgeous!"

Sam gulps but nods evenly, "Gabriel."

"You love it really," the Archangel says taking slow steps towards Sam. He frowns, noticing Sam's injured, and snaps his fingers simultaneously healing the damaged shoulder and vanishing the bandage.

"I don't know if I can watch this," Dean grimaces as he watches his brother squirming, but not really trying to get away from Gabriel, "Should I just leave you two to get at it?"

"Yes!" Gabriel says with a leer at the same time Sam says, "No!"

Dean sighs and stands up, "You're here why?"

"We've found your soul," Gabriel says turning back to face Dean, "it's with some sneaky demon in Atlanta so you need to get there. Stat."

"So that's it?" Dean says, "You're just leaving it there?"

Gabriel shrugs, "It's your soul—you go get it."

He looks at Sam again and licks his lips, "Tigerrr."

Dean shakes his head, resigned, "So, what? You say jump and what? We say how high?"

Gabriel smirks at him, "Yes. It's there: go get it."

"Atlanta's, what, 750 miles away?" Sam asks.

"738 actually, though I'm not one scale _anything_ down," Gabriel turns slowly on the spot to face Sam and rakes his eyes over him, "My God, I do hope you are proportionate."

"That's just under 12 hours of driving!" Dean says, because he's pretending the conversation between these two is not happening, and if it is—he can't hear it.

"That's just less than a two hour flight," Sam suggests and then looks at Dean.

Dean shakes his head furiously, "I don't want my soul back that much. We're driving there."

"Can't you just take us there?" Sam says to Gabriel.

"Close but no cigar," Gabriel says, pulling a lollipop out his pocket and sucking it enthusiastically.

"What?" Sam looks confused, but more distracted at what Gabriel's doing with his candy.

Dean nods, "The words coming out your mouth don't make any sense."

"Not the way it works," Gabriel shrugs, then offers some of his lollipop to Sam, "do you want a suck? If you don't like it, I've got a bigger one in my-"

Sam blushes, stutters and (more importantly, doesn't say no) Dean rolls his eyes, "Fuck my life."


	6. cure for the itch

**AN:** Credit to: Supernatural wiki, Wikipedia, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Hummingbird Bakery and the Indiana Jones series. This sounds like an Oscar Acceptance Speech. It's really not.

All feedback is appreciated, adored, then printed off and stuck to my bedroom wall. I'm kidding.

* * *

Seven hours later, in the motel they've pulled up in, Dean decides to confront Sam and Cas about whatever it is that they're not telling him.

Dean knows this isn't going to end well; Sam's still a little bit grouchy from being thrown through a door and Dean's eyes are closing from sheer exhaustion, but he needs answers before he goes back to his 'old', original body otherwise he won't find out what he has to give up until he has to give it up. Forewarned is forearmed and all that.

Sam looks at Dean who's sitting at the table in their room, finishing his metaphorical last meal, a Mississippi Mud Pie, "You, erm, made certain sacrifices to prevent the apocalypse."

Dean blinks, he hadn't been expecting that. "What? What kind of sacrifices?"

"We cannot tell you Dean..." Castiel says.

"Don't spout that we-can't-tell-you-bullshit!" Dean says slamming his fist on the table, because he's tired of hearing the same old excuses for so freakin' long, "Next thing you're all going to be saying how it'll all be okay and how I'll make the right choice when the time is right."

Castiel and Sam say nothing.

He stands up, hands still balled into fists and walks towards the window, "Fuck it, this is my _future_ and I have a fucking right to know."

Sam is quiet, so Castiel interjects, "The risk is too great."

Dean barks a sound that should be a laugh but it is too bitter and resentful and tired to be such, "What? You might tell me and I'll think fuck that shit – I'm not going to do that and then what? It's not like I'm solely responsible for averting this apocalypse!"

Sam and Cas exchange looks.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me!" Dean mutters shaking his head, as he tries to stare both Cas and Sam down which a mean feat in itself. When neither of them crack a smile to tell him that they're yanking his chain, because _fuck _this is _not _happening, he grabs his coat and runs out.

He only gets about one hundred yards before he can hear Sam's huge-ass mammoth feet stamp on the ground, as he runs across the motel car park to catch up with him.

"Dean!" Sam calls, "Wait up!"

Dean ignores him and keeps walking, but Sam darts in front of him, "How could you keep something like this from me?"

Sam grabs his arm and he has this pained expression on his face and Dean wants to hug his brother and promise to cook him his favorite dinner, but he's not seven anymore and those memories seem a whole lifetime away. Dean twists out of reach, "Fuck you Sam."

"Look," Sam says, "you're important to preventing the apocalypse."

"No shit Sammy."

"I don't get it Dean." Sam lets go of Dean and puts his hands up in a sign of surrender. "Why are you so mad? I mean, we averted the apocalypse, we-_you_ saved the world!"

"Yeah and that's all good and well," Dean says suddenly, voice rising as he turns to face Sam. "But what about me Sam? I don't get a fucking choice! I mean, what did I sacrifice? You're sure as hell not going to tell me.

"It can't have been my soul, so what was it Sam?" His brother's expression is black and he looks past him to see Castiel watching them from the doorway of the motel room. He knows he can hear everything that they're saying perfectly well even though they're across the parking lot.

"Huh? I don't get a fucking choice, because it was the _right_ choice and that's all that matters. I've already given up my life to this, I've died, I've spent more years in Hell than I'd like to remember and for what? At the end of the day, there's always more, what else do I have to give up?"

"Dean…" Sam mutters, brushing his bangs out of his eyes, "It wasn't like that."

"No, shut up, Sammy." Dean says, rubbing a hand over his face, "I've already made this choice, in this timeline it's already fucking happened, okay? That means when I go back, I'm going to make the choice that leads us to this world, this moment, this situation where the past me is pulled back."

Dean steps a step back from his brother, before he turns away and starts walking. "It's already happened."

"There's always a choice Dean!" Sam calls.

"No there isn't."

"Dean!"

* * *

Dean doesn't know how he finds himself sitting in Cas's motel room waiting for the angel to return, or where the angel is to return from. Maybe it was when he finally summoned the strength to look in the mirror after his shower and see the love bites peppered along the length of his collarbone, the bruises on the inside of his thigh or maybe the newly formed war wounds on his forearms.

Either way he can't tell if Cas is surprised to find him sitting in his motel room, because Cas always has that look on his face.

"Why are you here Dean?" Castiel asks as he shrugs out of his trench-coat and leaves that folded over the back of the chair.

"I need some answers Cas," Dean says, rubbing his face with his hand, "I can't begin to say how _fucked_ this is."

"Indeed," agrees Cas as he sits on the bed next to Dean. "You are aware there are many things which I cannot tell you."

"I don't see why not." Dean grouches, "Things are just going to turn out the same anyway."

Castiel sighs. "They would not. The reason we are not telling you the choices that you have made, is so that you choose. You have no way of knowing which could take you to this path."

"Well that's comforting," mutters Dean.

"Indeed," Cas says again.

Dean is silent, looking down at his hands.

"You were not supposed to die." Castiel says.

Dean doesn't even bother asking him when, since there have been too many times.

Cas grabs his chin, forcing Dean to look at him, and since when did he get this hands on in his pep talks? "Don't you realize? Every time you've died you've come back. You have this protection on you, I can't go into it, but, you only give up something that you've already lost. It's-" Castiel releases Dean's face from his grip and looks out the window again, "I should stop talking now."

Dean shrugs next to him, and looks out the window as well, just in time to see a man teaching his kid to ride a bike run past, "Cas – what did I sacrifice?

"It's not my place to tell you."

"Yeah, well I'm asking."

Cas doesn't say anything.

Dean turns back to face the angel, "I need to know—if you're talking about me having to give something up, something this big then I have a right to know what it is. Don't you think? "

Cas still doesn't say anything and the silence that stretches between them isn't uncomfortable and Dean sort of thinks that he could get used to this, this thing with Cas that he has.

Eventually, Cas speaks, "What you gave up—it was not yours to give."

Dean pauses to process that, and then frowns, "What do you mean?"

"Well you know how the cupids merged together your parent's bloodlines?"

Dean sighs and rubs his boots over one another because it means they're back to this 'everything was planned out and you must do what we say because it has been so decided' bullshit, "So everything was preordained?"

"Exactly. You didn't give up anything Dean. In order to stop the apocalypse the sacrifice of your mother's soul and her protection on you were deemed sufficient. That and everything else that you have already suffered through."

"…. My mother's soul?" What kind of an asshole is he? Who gives up their dead mother's soul?

"Yes," Castiel nods, "we were surprised as you are."

"This is ridiculous," Dean says, feeling a little bit numb and more than a little bit shitty. "Can you tell me anything about this choice?"

He takes a deep breath, and tries to collect his thoughts instead of just burying himself in a hole in the motel parking lot, which given what he has to do when he goes back to his own time, seems like the more sensible option.

"No," Cas shakes his head, "I should not have told you that, you are doing that thing where you blame yourself for everything."

"How did y-"

"Because I love you Dean and we have been together for a while now, the you of this present and myself. I know you intimately."

Dean looks at him and Cas shrugs like what he just said wasn't a big deal or a life-changing revolution.

"It's just that she's my mother," Dean says, "family _always_ comes first and you don't know what I'd sacrifice just to spend one more day with her and now you're telling me that I give her up—_just like that. _What kind of a person does that make me?"

"She planned this," Castiel moves back and envelops Dean in this awkward hug type thing, with too much elbow somehow. Dean guesses they don't spend much of their time together hugging. "It was her sacrifice for you; she did it so you could live. There are some things in life you have to learn to accept Dean and this is one of them."

Dean doesn't know what to say, but draws himself out of Castiel's uncomfortable hug shaped thing, and takes Castiel's hand into both of his.

"Cas?"

"Yes?"

His voice is pathetically small and he hates it, but at least it isn't cracking. "Can I make a choice now?"

Castiel nods slightly, eyes fixed on Dean's face.

Dean leans in towards Castiel, his hand sliding across the angel's knee and up without a thought, and fits his lips to Cas's.

It's soft and gentle and when Cas exhales into Dean's mouth—it's perfect.

Castiel is the best fucking kisser in the world, because when they come apart and Cas's cheeks are flushed, Dean's eyes are wide and when he says, "Oh," in a breathy tone, Cas pushes him down onto the bed with his inhuman strength (so hot by the way), pulls Dean's bottom lip into his mouth and makes his toes curl.

Suddenly Cas pulls away, like he's just remember Dean needs to breathe and right there Dean is jealous of him for the first time because if it wasn't for this irritating habit of his (breathing) then they wouldn't have had to stop.

Yeah, it's that good.

But it gets better when Dean flips them and then Castiel fits right underneath Dean that it's like they were made to fit one another, and he's all hands and when Dean runs his hand over the waistband of his pants he makes this deliciously happy noise at the back of throat and Dean feels like he's going to die soon if this doesn't get somewhere.

* * *

Their motel room is dark; it's just after three in the morning. Dean is normally awake—because it's the witching hour and that's when demons, ghosts and witches are most powerful. Midnight is the most dangerous time; a door opens from one world to the next and that is why magic is most powerful at the middle of the night.

That's when the demons come, when you are alone in your dreams and most vulnerable and helpless. You cannot stop them from taking what they want. You lie there, deep asleep while they pillage and plunder and take what is most precious. Since John taught him the folklore, Dean rarely sleeps during these hours and he breathes a deep sigh of relief whenever it passes and both him and Sammy are fine.

"It's all about the number eleven." Castiel says quietly, disrupting the silence of the room and Dean from his thoughts.

Dean's interest peaks so he slides a hand over Cas's waist and pulls the angel towards him.

Castiel pretends he wasn't just dragged across the bed like a rag doll and continues, "Your mother, the date of her birth and the date of her death are the same. She died November 2."

"And that means what?" Dean frowns, "There's obviously some significance to it."

Castiel nods, "I don't know myself, but she died at 11:27 exactly. I believe it was to enable a protection of sorts." He pauses and rubs the back of his neck absently. Dean marvels at the human gesture. "The night you were conceived a Hellhound was watching, and many years later when your father incited a ritual to reach her on the spirit plane, a Hellhound locked onto her and tried to prevent it."

"But what does it have to do with Hellhounds?" Dean says and rolls onto his front so the pillow pushes him up and he can look at Castiel better, "Did she make a deal?"

"I do not know exactly what your mother invoked, but whatever it was it was powerful." Castiel says, playing with the sheets, "In order for the protection to work, something needed to be given in return; that is the way Old things work."

"Old?" Dean asks, sighing, he can practically hear the capital letters.

"Yes," Castiel nods, "objects, practices, people that have been on this Earth since the very beginning, like the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant and the first set of Commandments God gave to Moses."

Dean ignores the fact that apparently there have been people on this Earth since the beginning and are apparently still alive well over two thousand years later.

"With such an extreme protection there was a debt to be paid. I believe she tried her hardest to avoid it, that was until your father almost drowned and your mother saved him. But, with a ritual like that there's no going back. Blood is the payment because blood is life. For a protection of that caliber they took all her blood; all her life."

Dean is silent, because it all makes sense and she had no right and there is absolutely nothing he can say to that.

"I don't know exactly why she did it," Castiel admits, "but it was a very good thing to do. I am a little curious as to whether or not she remembered your visit to the past, but, why did you think you never stayed dead?"

"Honestly?" Dean asks, tensing, because he's not in a Mr Nice guy mood, "So I could be Fate or Heaven or who-fucking-ever's bitch."

Castiel says his name in the resigned tone that it took Sam years to master.

Dean calms down slightly for some reason he doesn't really want to analyze but still dismisses him because he wants to keep the Let's Tell Dean Something For Once juices flowing, "Why did this Adrian take my soul?"

"If your soul was removed then you would essentially be a body," Cas replies, "you could be controlled, he could command you to do a ritual—remember, all you need is blood. The bond forged between your soul and your mother's when she made that sacrifice would be broken, and the apocalypse could be back on track."

Dean rolls his eyes because it always comes back around to an apocalypse or world domination, "What is it with these people and ending the world? Where the hell are they gonna live if they succeed?"

He sighs dramatically, "Talk about not thinking these things through." The tension that had been building is suddenly diffused and Dean feels a little bit more relaxed now that he has the full picture.

Cas smiles a lazy, fucked-out half smile that does things to Dean's insides he doesn't want to think about.

"If only I'd known softening you up with sex would get me answers before," Dean muses, "that would have saved me a lot of time."

Cas nods and waves a hand dismissively, "You only have yourself to blame."

Dean wrestles him into the mattress.


	7. we'll go no more aroving

So this is kinda late for a number of reasons: a) I've been working! b) my beta's been staying with me for a while and has been distracting me from writing c) we did this meme where someone gives you seven random actors and you make a TV show d) and then we did it again e) and again f) and then I liked one so much I wrote fic for it (I don't even know, what is this?)

**Tl;dr - **SORRY FOR THE DELAY AND HAPPY EASTER.

* * *

"I don't see why we can't stop for breakfast," Dean mutters as he hauls his bag into the trunk of his car, ignoring the fact that it's about four in the morning and pitch black out.

"Sooo," Sam says in a smooth tone as he dumps his bag next to Dean's, "anything happen last night?"

Dean frowns and slams the trunk shut, almost catching his brother's fingers. "No."

Sam just looks at him and Dean frowns because both of them knows he's lying, so he stalks off with as much dignity as he has left, to sit in the driver's seat so he can bitch at Cas and Sam for making them late.

Sam moves round to sit in the passenger side, and the two of them sit in silence waiting for Cas to emerge from the motel room.

Dean's face twitches (a little bit) when Sam begins to drum his fingers on the car window because he's leaving fingerprint marks, because he's a persistent little bitch who doesn't know when to give up, because Dean's a little bit nervous about going to get his soul, because he's nervous about going back, because he kinda doesn't want to go back, because he doesn't want to sacrifice his mother's soul, because he doesn't want to be in a place where he isn't in a relationship with Cas, because he slept with Cas last night and he's not entirely sure where this leaves them.

"Breathe," Sam says, a cross between amused and fond, "you look like you're going to have an aneurysm."

Dean ignores him, and starts the car instead because Cas has just climbed into the backseat and he doesn't want to have this conversation now or ever.

"So," Dean says, after a few moments of silence and they've reached the highway. He edges the car slightly past 70, "what kind of operation have we got going on here? Are we going stealth or-"

"Dean," Cas interrupts, "we are going to walk through the front door and either come out with your soul, or not at all."

"Oh," Dean mutters. "Fair enough then."

Sam pulls a face and then lies back in his seat so he can have a quick, pre-fight nap, "Regular day for the Winchesters."

* * *

"Turn left here," Cas says a couple minutes after they turn onto a narrow road.

"That?" Dean says disbelievingly, pointing at the dirt track, "That is a gap in a forest. That is not a road."

"I never said it was a road," Castiel replies, a touch of impatience coloring his tone, "I said to turn left."

"You know what?" Dean mutters, "Cars are built for roads. That is not a road and the car is not going down it. We will have to find another way: end of discussion."

"Do you or do you not want to get your soul back, Dean?" Castiel says quietly and reasonably.

There is a silence for a few moments as Dean realizes that he was just stalling for time, time to sort his man-feelings out from his man-pain, to figure out this thing he seems to have with Cas.

"Wow," Sam claps his hands together, "is it me or is the sexual tension in here really thick?"

Dean shoots his brother a spectacular unimpressed look and then hits the gas, "Shut up, bitch."

Sam rolls his eyes.

"How far down the road are we going?"

The undergrowth, on what Dean can only assume was once a road, is ridiculous. There's fences creating a path through fields and meadows, but it's been abandoned and what had once been a clear path is now carpeted with green. They really are in the back ass end of nowhere.

"Until you see the house." Cas says simply, "I will meet you there."

"Wait!" protests Dean, "You can't just…" He trails off.

"He's already gone hasn't he?"

Sam nods. "On the plus side, you and I can have that chat you've been avoiding."

Dean ignores him and presses the gas pedal harder.

"You can't ignore me forever," Sam says, twisting in his seat to stare Dean down, "sooner or later we're going to have to have this discussion."

"We're not actually." Dean interrupts.

"You can't put things off forever because you don't want to talk about them. That's not only ridiculous but the most childish thing I've ever head you say."

Dean stops the car and looks at his brother, amused for the first time in a long while, "Actually, we're here, but after we're rescuing my soul we can sit around and talk about as many feelings as you like." He steps out the car and walks around the trunk to pop it.

Suddenly, Sam's by his side at the trunk, face lit up, "Really?"

Dean snorts and picks up a shotgun, "No."

"You're such a jerk," Sam says, picking a sawn off shotgun (his favorite) up and putting extra ammo into his pockets. "I hate you."

Dean doesn't say anything, but pumps his shotgun; ready to take out any wayward demons.

"There's a clear path there," Sam says pointing to a gap in the undergrowth, "that must be the way the demons were getting in."

They climb through the gap in the fence, to the house, ready to kill some demons. Except they're all dead. The ground is littered with the bodies of about forty demons (all men, Dean is pleased to note, he really had hoped that the demons weren't getting desperate enough to use women and children) and they're just in time to see Castiel plunge his hand into last one's throat and rip it out.

"Huh," Dean says as he further into the clearing, "that was actually kind of handy."

Cas turns towards them and shrugs in a sort of, _I know I'm amazing like that—but really I'm modest at heart,_ way.

"So what's left to do now?" Sam asks, fairly relaxed, resting his shotgun over his shoulder since he obviously doesn't need it any more.

Then, the front door of the house creaks open ominously.

"Well this guy has been watching too many Stephen King films ," Dean mutters. "That's a sign if I ever saw one ."

"Indeed," Castiel agrees, nodding, "the demon is waiting for you inside. I can sense it through the protections. I cannot get enter the house until he is dead."

"You can't just go in." Sam adds, "It's probably a trap."

Dean puts his shotgun down and starts emptying the rounds out of his pockets. "That's why I have a plan."

* * *

"Dean." The room is dark, the windows are curtained, and then a figure steps into the light so his face is visible. It's all a bit clichéd.

"And you are?" Dean shakes his head, "I don't really socialize with demons—but know thy enemy and all that."

"My name is Adrian."

Dean squints at him in the half light, "You look like a Bernard." The man has graying hair and a receding hair line. He's also too old to be having a mid life crisis and much too old to be seriously considering world domination.

Adrian gives him a long, slow look, "Means Dark One."

"No need to be so cheery." Dean shrugs, and then he realizes that the two of them are circling each other, like two animals preparing to fight. He forces himself to stop.

The silence between them is awkward, Dean doesn't understand why; usually he'd have ganked Adrian by now.

"So, Bernard, I hear you've been trying to kill me."

"The name is _Adrian_." The demon is looking slightly annoyed at this point.

Dean shrugs again, "Yeah, but you've been trying to kill me, so I think calling you Bernard is one of the nicer things I can christen you."

Adrian doesn't say anything to this but shrugs as if to say, yeah, he's got a point.

Dean's tone is now accusatory, and he slowly moves a little bit closer, "So you sent your little bitches to try and get me."

Again, Adrian shrugs, and _that_ is beginning to annoy Dean now, "Don't send one to do a demon's job."

"I quite like you. I think, if you weren't a demon or you know, trying to kill me, we could have had something special."

"It is a shame."

"Yes." Dean agrees, steps closer again, and then pulls the demon killing knife out of his sleeve to gank Adrian.

Adrian steps out the way, grabs the knife with his bare hands and throws Dean into a wall.

"I like my life," Adrian says like that hadn't just happened and inspects his cuticles, "I'm a simple man. I have simple needs."

"Trying to kill me is simple?" Dean wheezes, coughing from the dusty floor.

Adrian sniffs, almost haughtily, "Nothing is ever simple with the Winchesters, especially you Dean, you're all too-" He pauses to consider his next word, "involved."

Dean seems to consider this for a second before he darts to the door and runs through the hallway, then out the house and onto the porch.

"You didn't think it'd be that easy to get away from me?" Adrian says, appearing out of thin air right next to Dean. "Did you?"

Dean stops running and turns from the edge of the porch, "Well no actually. You're the one that stepped into the Devil's Trap."

Adrian looks down at the trap drawn on the porch, outside the protections on the house, and swears softly.

Dean grins and Cas, solemn looking, walks forward to gank him.

* * *

The room in the basement is black. Solid concrete lines the floor, walls and ceiling. There are no windows and the door is made of reinforced steel.

"Sweet," Dean says, almost appreciatively, as he walks in, holding a flashlight so he can see where he's going in the pitch black. Sam and Castiel follow him.

His soul is sitting there, in the middle of a badly drawn chalk circle, in an opaque, glass urn.

Sam looks suitably impressed too.

He's walks to the centre of the room, towards his soul, mesmerized, so that he's just outside the pale outline chalked on to the floor. The urn reacts, vibrating slightly and prickles of white can be seen piercing the black of its container. It's beautiful and mesmerizing and compelling and Dean takes another step forward just wanting to get closer.

As soon as his left foot crosses the line, an invisible force sends him careering backwards and he's thrown into a wall.

"Why the fuck does this always happen to me?"

Cas's expression in unreadable but Sam looks a cross between amused and concerned. "Because you're a dumbass."

"Fuck you," Dean says grabbing the wall to stand up as he scrambles for his flashlight. He stands up, but his hand is wet.

"You have to see this," he says shining his flashlight on his fingers then at the wall.

There are a myriad of symbols, words and incantations in tiny gold lettering painted on to it. He reaches out to touch a section, rubs the word 'servo' off onto his fingers.

"Looks fresh," he says, but then a soft orange glow appears and the words write themselves back onto the wall and he steps backwards. "Well, I'll be damned."

Sam's eyes are wide with amazement as he wipes his fingers along a different section of the wall, smearing the symbol off and then watching draw itself back on, "This must have taken months."

"Yeah," Dean sighs, "they _really_ wanted to kill me."

"I do not think they were trying to kill you." Castiel says, "I believe they might have discovered how important you were. It would have been easier for them to incapacitate you."

"Ahh, those demons," Dean says with an affectionate tone coloring his voice, "They're just so damn thoughtful. Maybe they should just send flowers next time if they're that bothered."

Sam coughs, "So how do we break it? I can't think of any rituals or incantations that could do anything like this – let alone a counter. I mean the words that Dean has smeared off with his grubby hands have just come back again."

"That is because it is of Old." Castiel has a very serious look on his face and Dean knows now is not the time to ask questions, "I need you to leave the room Sam, since what I'm about to do might kill you."

Sam's eyes flash with concern for his brother before he shines his flashlight on Dean's face, nods tightly, then disappears out the room, closing the door behind him.

It shuts ominously, and the room is much darker now they only have the one light. It feels sort of intimate; it's just Castiel, him and his soul in a room.

"What do we have to do?"

"I have to draw a sign of unity," Castiel explains as he walks off into the darkness, towards Dean's soul, "that's the only way we can reunite your soul to your body safely. I will act as the conductor, if you will."

Dean is trailing after the outline of Cas, "And Sam could have interfered with that."

Castiel forgets that Dean can't see as well in the dark as he can and nods, the movement is almost imperceptible, but Dean has spent a lot of time in the last few days staring at Castiel, so it does not go unnoticed.

Then, Castiel squats on the floor with a piece of chalk in his hand sketching out a circle, roughly the same size as the one that surrounds his soul, but drawn in such a place that the two will have a definite overlap.

Dean shines his light on the ground so that Castiel can see what he is doing, and they move around the room slowly.

Castiel stops at the edge of the circle which had thrown Dean across the room earlier.

"Dude," Dean says as he watches Cas stand up, "you can't draw the other side of the circle – how the hell is this going to work?"

Castiel hands Dean his coat, "You need to learn to have faith Dean. You forget that I am not human."

He bends back down to drag the chalk across the ground and steps over the threshold of the first part of the circle. It's obvious how much of a struggle it is for him to stay there. Before, it hadn't taken him long to mark out the first section of his circle, but now every step is a fight for him, beads of sweat roll off him, and Dean can see his shirt is getting wet.

By the time he has finished extending the circle back round, so that it crosses over the original one again, it is evident to Dean that Castiel is exhausted.

"Dude, you need to sit down," Castiel stumbles over the line, and Dean grabs his shoulders to prevent him collapsing; his skin is clammy and his breathing is rapid.

"I am fine Dean," Castiel says reassuringly, "it is tiring for this vessel. I am unaffected, it is simply frustrating because it would not take so long if I was in my true form."

It is then that Dean understands how powerful the demon really was. Because if Castiel could use his true form, he would – the guy is not patient to say the least, so if he can't use his power, that would mean that he too is bound to his vessel by the power of the sigils and spells on the room.

"Holy shit, Cas," Dean takes a step back from Castiel who has recovered slightly but still swaying, "it's too dangerous for you to be in here. If a demon comes it could _kill_ you– you need to get out! This could be a trap!"

Castiel shakes his head and Dean wants to hit him.

"We will continue," Castiel says in a no-nonsense tone and although he sounds much better, Dean can't tell if it's real or faked. "Please stand in the middle of the circle."

Dean casts a concerned glance over Castiel, assessing how injured he appeared to be, before he finds nothing too worrying and heads over to stand in the center of Castiel's circle.

"You are not in the middle Dean," Castiel criticizes, "you need to move East nine inches."

"Right." Dean says sarcastically, because, he's in a room with no windows, "I'll get right on that. Because ILet me just ask my personal compass and I'll get right on it."

Dean imagines Castiel rolling his eyes, before he hears footsteps approaching him and he's suddenly face to face with Cas.

Castiel puts his hands on his waist – way too intimate, and moves him left a couple of footsteps before he stops, "Here. Do not move."

Castiel's breath is tickling his chin, and his gaze is deep and searching. Dean feels the blood draining from his head, and pinches his forearm to remind himself that now is not the time.

Then Dean blinks, or maybe Castiel blinks, but then he's gone, walking towards the point where the two circles overlap. This time, when he crosses the first circle, it's easier for him, Dean can tell – his shoulders don't tense and his movements aren't as stiff.

"Turn your flashlight off Dean."

Dean smiles quickly at Castiel, while he can, before he turns off his light and throws it into a corner.

Castiel starts chanting, his voice resonating throughout the room and Dean can feel it going _through_ him, calling a part of his soul to awake. He's pretty sure Sam can hear it outside, even though the walls are lined with six inches of concrete.

"Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio; contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium."

The temperature in the room starts to rise sharply, and suddenly, the urn is emitting this light which steadily gets brighter to the point where it's unbearable and Dean throws his arm across his face to protect his eyes.

"Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur: tuque, Princeps militiae Caelestis, satanam aliosque spiritus malignos, qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo, divina virtute in infernum detrude. "

The glass that houses his soul shatters then, and Dean unbuttons his shirt with one hand to relieve some of the heat, but it doesn't work. He can hear his blood pounding thick in his ears, and there's this sudden pressure in the room—it's stifling.

"Amen."

The light gets stronger, if that's even possible and Dean gets hotter, thinking fuck it, and takes his shirt off while managing to keep a hand over his eyes for the most part. The silence after that point seems to stretch on forever, but Castiel's voice tentatively breaks it:

"Beatus exsisto vestri nomen…."

And even though his eyes are shut, he knows the white light is there, he's sweating profusely.

He feels light headed, the room is kinda tilting from side to side now, but the light isn't as bright now, so he opens his eyes.

And sees into his own soul.

"…in via venalicium per patientia."

* * *

Translation:

Saint Michael the Archangel,  
defend us in battle;  
be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.  
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray:  
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,  
by the power of God,  
thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits  
who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.  
Amen.

And Castiel's addendum:  
Blessed be your name, on the road marked with suffering.


	8. it is the eclipse

**AN:** Sorry for the delay, RL got in the way of posting, it was really hard to write and then there were problems with ff net last night so it was fated I guess. This is the last chapter—there is an epilogue to go and that should be up in a couple days so until then!  
(It's kinda short and it shows but I didn't want to stretch it out like Last of the Summer Wine (Brit reference, sorry guys) so it's stops in a place that I think is right)  
AND **HAPPY SUMMER!**

* * *

He crashes into the mirror, shards of glass raining down over him as he hits the floor. Fucking mirror. Who the fuck puts a mirror over a fireplace anyway?

"Sam?" Dean groans, clutching at his head. He's still a little dizzy from seeing inside his own soul. "Cas?"

"Your brother isn't here to protect you now," the demon taunts, she taps her heel into the grain of the wood, almost impatiently.

Shit. He's back in the house with the crazy ass demon. At least he has clothes on; fate isn't a complete bitch.

Dean opens his eyes and stands up defiantly, his pride flaring up and proving he isn't weak, as he brushes bits off glass off himself like they didn't throb where they cut him, "Bite me."

And he's totally aware he is completely defenseless and totally fucked but he is _not_ going down without a fight.

The demon grins wickedly and moves forward, an expression of sheer smugness on its face before it transforms to one of agony. It opens its mouth to scream, but only a muted choke can be heard and a soft light appears between its lips before the body crumples to the ground.

"It is over Dean," Castiel says from across the room, (and sorry, what? When did he get there?) staring at the body hard, almost like he's daring it to get back up.

"Thanks dude, I needed that," Dean says, about to cross his arms over his chest but he can't because it irritates all of the hundreds of cuts he seems to have accumulated. That's going to be a pain in the ass; he probably has a couple of juicy bruises on his back as well from being thrown into the mirror. Fucking _thing_.

"You are injured Dean," Cas moves over to him, before he can jump or move away, and grasps his wrists tightly to examine his cuts, one arm at a time.

"Yeah," Dean mutters with a blasé air, staring downwards as the grain of the floor suddenly takes on an interestingly quality that Cas couldn't achieve, "I couldn't help but notice that."

Castiel frowns and looks up, "You are using sarcasm; do you wish me to stop?"

"No, no," Dean can hear the hurt in his voice. He makes the mistake of looking up into Cas's face and becomes slightly distracted with his eyes. What the hell is happening to him? He trails off, "I was just being…" a stupid fucker.

"Look, we need to talk," Dean says stepping out of Castiel's grasp and looking at the wall since that way he has a _chance _of being coherent, "something big has just happened."

Castiel nods, and Dean knows that he has sensed something, but says nothing in that infuriating manner of his.

His future self is totally gone on Cas, he concludes, his thoughts sound like something out of a teenager's diary. He only saw the inside of his future self's soul, saw why Future-Dean was in love with Castiel for a split second. But now, those reasons seem to have imbedded themselves into his essence so they're now his reasons for loving Castiel too. He's seeing Castiel the way his future self does. Fuck.

"And there's something else I want to talk about. You and me – I kind of had an epiphany while I was…" Dean rubs his face, why is he doing this now? "Look, I can't really explain how I know this, but you and me, in the future we're-"

"Dean?" Sam runs into the room and Dean is so grateful since he really wouldn't have been able to stop himself talking, "Thank God. I had the knife, about to kill your demon when the other one was getting away so-"

"Don't worry about it," Dean interrupts, feeling like someone let the air back in the room, "dude, you would not believe what has just happened to me."

* * *

"This is fucked up Dean." Sam says disbelievingly from the passenger seat of the Impala with a hand on his forehead, "There is no way you could have gone to the future because someone took your soul. Things like that just do _not_ happen."

Dean rolls his eyes, "What so it's okay for good old Zach to swing by and drop me in 2014, but when a demon steals my soul and I go time-traveling that's not okay? It happened, get over it."

"Hmm," Sam ventures, "say this actually happened. What went on while you were there?"

"I can't tell you," Dean grins. Guess whose turn it is to be left in the freaking dark now? "You two in the future said that I didn't tell you what happened during my little trip."

Sam shakes his head, "Of course."

"And you fuckers refused to tell me what happened with the apocalypse." Dean adds grumpily, "Practically rubbing it in my face all the damn time. Sadistic bastards, the both of you."

"Really?" Sam says sarcastically, "You know, this is sounding more and more like a dream. Did you hit your head when you were thrown into the mirror?"

"He did not dream this," Castiel says, quietly from the backseat of the Impala where he hasn't said a word since Sam disrupted their moment, thing, whatever. "I do not understand how this happened, but I sensed there was a split moment when he was not here. That is why I came."

"My hero," Dean says mock sappily, taking a hand off the wheel and holding it over his heart before he shifts back to being serious, "If Cas says it happened and I say it happened; it happened."

Sam nods his head, reluctantly conceding, as Dean pulls into a motel.

"Cas can you give us twenty minutes?" Dean says, turning round to face the angel in the back of his car, "I need to talk to my brother."

Castiel nods then disappears.

"I'm presuming you want to talk about what happened when you went into the future?" Sam asks again as they get out the car. "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume we didn't sit down together and bake cupcakes."

"I don't know how much I can actually tell you," Dean admits as he sits on the trunk and Sam sits next to him, "I think all I can say is that I get pulled into the future, until you guys fix me and then I get sent back here."

"Well that's helpful," Sam says as he shifts his mammoth sized legs so they're stretched out, "so what was the future like exactly?"

Dean's mind wanders back to his newly formed relationship with Castiel and he wonders how much he can tell Sammy without scaring him for life. Yeah, I realized that I'm going to fall for an angel and we're gonna fuck like rabbits after we get the shit between us sorted out. "Not bad for a post-apocalyptic world."

Sam pulls this face that he makes when he's doing some serious thinking, "Would it be possible for us to stop it? I mean, I'm gonna assume that you guys found whoever was behind all this right? And that's how you got back." He waits for Dean's nod before he continues.

"So we could use that information to gank this son of a bitch now," Sam reasons, "that way we could avoid this whole situation and everything."

Dean considers this carefully, he knows the license plate and that the guy's name is Adrian, they could ask local hunters to keep an eye on any activity in that old house—it'd be quite easy to kill him really. Catch him when he's unawares, Dean wouldn't have to go through that whole thing again or have his soul removed in the future.

And alright, yeah he's not looking forward to being crammed into some glass jug for a week.

But then, following that line of reasoning, he wouldn't _see_ his future soul either and he wouldn't fall in love with Cas.

At this point, Dean's stomach rumbles.

"Sammy, we need to get me some food." Dean says, "Time traveling makes me hungry."

Sam throws him an incredulous look which he ignores.

Cas appears on the other side of the parking lot, perfect timing, since Dean didn't want to continue that conversation and have to explain why he didn't want to go through that ordeal again. Dean waves him over, "Come on, we're gonna get something to eat."

* * *

Castiel opens the door and trails behind the brothers as they look for a diner.

"We are not eating in there." Sam says as they stop outside a grubby looking eatery. "We have standards."

"Man up, Samantha," Dean mutters as he pushes the door open and then his brother through it. It's good to be back.

Sam slides into the booth first and Dean sits opposite him naturally. Normally, this is well, normal, but Castiel is with them and after a moment's hesitation he decides to sit next to Dean. Normally, Dean wouldn't mind, but sitting so close to someone who makes you dizzy whenever you look into their eyes for too long when you don't want to admit your feelings for them to them, or yourself, isn't such a good idea.

"Dude," Dean grouches as he makes a performance of taking off his jacket and stuffing it in between him and Cas to act as a barrier, "give a guy some room to breathe."

Sam watches them both, probably analyzing Dean's odd behavior, but flicks his eyes back to the menu when he realizes Dean is glaring at him.

"Okay," Sam says, "what do you want to eat Castiel?"

Dean's brain supplies a plethora of suggestions. He gulps and shifts uncomfortably in his seat as a particularly vivid one flashes to the forefront of his mind.

* * *

It's early morning by the time they get back to the motel.

"We'll take two rooms," Dean says to the tired looking woman behind the desk as he slaps some bills down, "two queens."

Sam's face transforms into a look that's like watching an old woman see the English Royal Wedding.

"Don't say anything," Dean shakes his head slowly since he's drunk with tiredness. And maybe a little beer, "Cas and I need to have a little catch up about some, erm, things…"

"With one bed?" Sam repeats with a disbelieving look on his face, "Yeah, you two are gonna do some catching up alright."

The woman behind the desk looks a little perkier, much to Dean's annoyance – goddamn nosey people, and gives him a long, all knowing look over her glasses as she hands him their room keys.

Dean snatches them off her and throws one key at Sam, "C'mon Cas – let's get outta here."

The room is generously sized, but when the door clicks shut softly behind Cas and it's just the two of them (and Dean's bags) it feels tiny.

"What did you want to talk about?" Cas asks, still on the other side of the room.

Dean lets out a nervous laugh, because he's panicking and there's still time for him to run out the room. The Impala keys are in his jacket pocket and he fingers them, "I think you know already."

"You have changed," Castiel says. "Your soul is… For lack of words, better, healthier."

Dean walks over to a drawer because his father did not raise a coward and leaves the car keys there. He doesn't stop moving either and paces around the room because his thoughts are racing around his head. "Look, I just need to know… Shit, I can't do this." He stops mumbling and pauses in front of Cas, "Are you attracted to me?"

And shit, this couldn't have gone worse if Dean had just handed him one of those notes saying, 'Do u lyk me? Check Y/N'

"Are friends not attracted to one another?" Castiel says, "That is why they're your friends, because you see something in them that attracts you to them."

"I was kinda thinking more than friends." Dean mutters.

Castiel looks surprised, "In that case, yes I believe I am attracted to you."

And it's such a simple statement, one that Dean wasn't expecting to hear from this Cas despite Future Cas's words. Relief floods him and he steps forward into Cas's space and presses a chaste kiss to his lips. Cas is gently responsive after a while, it's not apparent that he's not done this before – muscle memory from the body and all, but it feels like he hasn't done it for a while. Even so, it feels good to know that he's the only one that's kissed Cas. It kinda scares him how much he's willing to do to keep it that way.

When Dean steps back, Cas's eyes are wide and he presses a hand to his lips, curious. "What was that for?"

"I feel the same," Dean says, "there were some things I didn't tell Sam about the future. Me and you; we were together and you—future you that is, showed me what we'd be like, how you felt."

Dean paces nervously and rubs his hand over his face, "Look… You have to understand. Not many good things happen in my life Cas." He turns towards the bed where Castiel is sat staring at him, "Actually, you're one of the best. I've lost too much already, I know a good thing when I see it and I don't want to let you go."

He stops his pacing and pauses, because although he's had a lot of time to write this speech of undying love for Cas, and it's perfect in his head… It's just a chick-flick moment and the words would get stuck in his mouth.

He could tell Cas that he's the only one who understands him; that he knows everything about Dean; that he's rather have Cas in his corner than anyone else; that he needs someone who's okay with his past, with the shit that he pulled in Hell; that Cas is fucking awesome; that he'd follow him to the end of the world if he had to; that he feels that he doesn't deserve him.

But, who is he kidding? Love never ends well for the Winchesters.

"Dean?" Cas says in a quiet tone and grips Dean's hands distracting him from his whirlwind thoughts, "Breathe. Do not over think this, over complicate this or make it difficult. I know that what you're about to say is a big deal, and it will take you a long time to be able to say it aloud. I understand that one day you will be able to – just not today. I understand how you feel Dean; I am intimately acquainted with your soul."

Dean nods, because now they're both on the same page and he feels like he can fucking breathe again.

"Better?" Castiel asks and Dean grins, because he never knew how much he needed him.

"There's something I have to tell you though," Dean says, because there's just one thing left that's puzzling him, "I saw inside my soul."

Castiel's looking at him with wonder now, "You are truly an anomaly."

"Huh?" Dean is so articulate, yeah.

"Aside from being the first to be raised from Hell, you are also the first to see inside your own soul."

Dean frowns because this seems like something that will have bad consequences, "Is this good?"

"Well now you see what I see in you," Castiel says. "Hopefully it will help."

"I don't speak colors, Cas," Dean interrupts, "I can't explain what I saw—it was just this overwhelming, intense, abrupt experience. I mean, I felt like I understood a lot more about myself in some aspects."

He pauses, then stops before he can continue to talk about his man-pain, then takes the defensive side. "I'm not a fourteen year old girl writing my feelings down in my journal. I can deal with it."

"Everyone hates themselves for something at some point in their lives," Cas says, because he knows why Dean stopped talking about what he saw, because they both know what was there, "few can say they don't, but fewer can claim a purity that your soul has. It is rare."

Dean shakes his head and shrugs out of his jacket, "I don't want to talk about this any more."

The angel is silent, and Dean is suddenly reminded of a sharp contrast between the Castiel stood before him, and the Cas of his future. That his Cas has a long way to go before he becomes, well, more human, for lack of better words.

"I know what," Dean says as he tugs the angel's tie, "I want you to stay tonight." Because saying that is easier than saying things like _I'm scared I love you this much_, _never leave me_ and _I love you._

He thinks Castiel knows anyway.


	9. epilogue: somewhere only we know

**AN:** My first completed multi chaptered fic! I feel happier than I think I should. (Can you believe I started writing this in 2009? Me neither.) Thanks for the reviews, concrit and support I've had—literally it all just makes me smile. A lot.

All reviews are appreciated (I wanna know what you guys think!)

* * *

"It wasn't pity sex and you haven't got a hangover so it wasn't oh-my-god-who-have-I-woken-up-in-bed-with sex," Sam concludes as Dean slides into the seat opposite him in the diner with the kind of grin he has on his face after a night of _fantastic_ sex. "So that leaves fuck buddies."

"We're not fuck buddies," Dean sighs and grabs a waffle off his plate. He eats half of it in one go, much to Sam's disgust, to avoid giving an explanation, but Sam is nothing if not patient. "I think we're dating."

Sam raises his eyebrows and drops his fork.

"I know," Dean puts his head in his hands because he's feeling a little dizzy from this revelation himself, though he can't tell if it's dizziness caused by lust or freaking out, "I didn't even know I liked guys."

"Cas isn't a guy," Sam offers after a while, in an effort to make Dean feel better, it's a little freaky to hear that from Sam again since he said that to Dean only four days ago but Dean _needs_ to hear it.

"Right," Dean says exhaling heavily, as he takes another bite out of his stolen waffle, "so it's angels that do it for me."

"I always knew you were a picky bastard," Sam jokes, "at least he doesn't look like Zachariah's vessel," he adds as he takes his first mouthful of food since Dean's arrived.

Dean looks thoughtful and nods, a vivid flashback of Castiel sprawled naked on their bed last night popping into his head and he gulps, hard, before he trusts himself to talk again and when he does his mouth is dry, "At least Cas is sexy and looks a little like-"

"Shut up," Sam interrupts, "I do not want to hear why you think Cas is sexy."

Dean shrugs, as he picks up the menu and looks it over a little too casually, "So you're not bothered by this thing we have?"

Sam sees right through him and they both know that if Dean is asking, it must be really important him. "No," He says honestly, "As long as I don't have to watch or listen to you two go at it like rabbits, I don't care. He might be good for you, you know."

"Well," Dean drawls, "he's good _to_ me – though, some might call it ba-"

"I am not listening to this," Sam says, his attention completely focused on his plate again.

Castiel walks into the diner at this point and Dean's face breaks out into a huge grin. Sam rolls his eyes but doesn't say anything.

"Good morning Sam," Castiel says as he sits down next to Dean and his hand disappears under the table, "_Dean_."

Dean feels the rest of the world slowly fading out of his awareness until it's just him and Castiel. And Castiel's hand kinda close to his crotch. "How'd you sleep?"

Castiel nods, eyes lighting up at the memory of last night, "It was pleasurable."

Dean suddenly becomes aware of the world again as Sam coughs from across the table, "Dude, I think I'm going to puke."

"Well don't eat anymore food then," Dean says as he steals another waffle.

Sam raises his eyebrows and his fork, daring Dean to steal something else off his plate.

"You're such an easy mark Sammy," Dean shoves a menu into Castiel's hands, "pick something so we can order us some food."

"You sweet talker, you," Sam mutters from across the table.

Dean looks amused, "Something to say Sam?"

"You do realize that I don't have to eat, right?" Castiel interrupts, holding the menu out for Dean to take.

"I do," Dean says his complete attention refocused on Castiel, "it'd just make me feel better to see you chewing on something once in a while."

Sam snorts and Dean shoots him a warning glance, "Don't say a word."

"I'll have whatever you have Dean," Castiel says after a short pause and Dean summons the waitress over, "that way you can eat as much of mine as you want without appearing to be overly indulgent."

Dean looks at Sam with a _did he really just say that_ expression because that was a sort of backhanded compliment, act of kindness thing that only an angel could pull off and still look so naïve about the whole thing.

Sam nods approvingly at the look of incredulity on Dean's face, "That was good, dude. You're learning fast Cas. I'm proud of you."

"This isn't how I'd imagine it'd be," Dean grumbles, leaning back and watching the waitress walk away having placed their orders, "you two are supposed to hate each other or something and I'm supposed to be the peacekeeper. You're not supposed to be ganging up on me already and you, _Sammy_ are not supposed to be encouraging him."

Castiel scoots closer to Dean.

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" Dean asks, "Now all I got is a warm thigh and an angel practically sitting in my lap. How am I supposed to eat anything now?"

"I do not understand," Cas says, "You enjoyed it this morning."

Sam looks a strange cross between green and pale while Dean freezes, having a vivid sense of déjà-vu as he clutches his head with his hands, "You said that in the future. After you kissed me and I freaked out."

Castiel nods and Sam frowns.

"Gimmie a minute," Dean says from behind his hands, "it's just a little weird for me 'cos I see the two of you from the future as different people from the yous of now. It just means that my brain won't implode from the sheer fuckery of this shit."

"How much about your trip to the future are you not telling us, or should I say, _me?_" Sam asks after Dean's relaxed.

"Chill Sammy," Dean waves a hand, "there's a lot of things that you don't want to know – but I guess one of the most important things that you should know is that when I ask you when Cas and I got together you can't tell me. Though, that really pissed me off, so I don't even know why I'm telling you to do that to me."

Even Castiel is curious about this, "Why shouldn't we tell you?"

"I dunno," Dean shrugs, "all I know is that when I got there and I asked, you all told me that I told you not to tell me when I asked."

"Wanna say that again?" asks Sam, "But you know, in a way that we can understand?"

Dean plays with his cutlery, "You think that's shit confusing? Try living it for, like, a week."

"So when you ask us when we got together, we tell you that we can't tell you…" Castiel trails off, having confused himself.

Dean nods, "Got it in one."

Sam grunts in disgust, "You two haven't even been dating twenty four hours yet and you have pet names for each other?"

Dean rolls his eyes and Castiel explains, "It is a joke Sam. It is something he mentioned last night and I was disgusted by."

"Yeah," Dean jokes in a better mood, now the waitress is serving him his breakfast, "that wasn't all I did last night that you were-"

"Okay," Sam waves his hands at each of them and cuts Dean off. "Here are some ground rules. No making jokes like _that_ in front of me. No groping, no making out, no fornicating.

"And I know there are gonna be some times when the going gets rough, and we might have to share a room. But," Sam looks at each of them intensely here to emphasize his point, " I do not care if I am drunk, comatose or dead– you two are not going to have sex while I'm in the room."

"If you were dead _then_ it'd be pity sex," Dean says smirking.

"Pity sex?" Castiel pokes at his fried egg, "I am unsure as to whether or not I understand."

* * *

**FUTURE:**

"Dean?" Castiel says, rushing over to where Dean is sprawled out on the ground. "Are you okay?"

"Dude," Dean mumbles, voice hoarse and he splutters, "I've been stuck in a jar the past week."

Cas smiles, though it's still pitch black so Dean might be imagining it, "It's good to see you too."

Dean coughs and then squirms slightly where he's gathered in Castiel's arms, "Why am I naked?"

Cas shrugs in a _what can you do_ kind of way, "The ritual burned your pants off."

"That's the biggest load of shit I've ever heard in my life," Dean says as he moves to stand up, "and that includes the time you told some old woman that you were this nice, helpful angel."

"I am," Cas says standing back up with Dean.

"No you're not," argues Dean, poking Cas in the chest, "if you were, you would have been taking advantage of me in my naked, naked state."

"Oh," Cas says.

"I guess you're going to have to make up for past recriminations, huh?" Dean mutters, wrapping his arms around Cas and tugging him closer, "how long did you tell Sam the ritual would last?"

Cas considers the situation, the way Dean is breathing into his air, the fingers tugging on his hair at the nape of his neck and then bends slowly into the other man's space, "I didn't."


End file.
